Nam Imperator
by Emperor of Man
Summary: With heretic Imperial forces belaying their oaths to the God-Emperor, can Sergeant Boris Vladimir of the Bocanh V Southern PDF defeat these traitors and save his home from Extermination. Please enjoy.
1. Chapter 1: Let them come

**Nam Imperator**

**I hereby announce that I do not own anything about and the Warhammer 40K universe, they are owned by their respective owners. I however, would like to claim ownership on the character names and planet name of this story. **

**Any references to names is purely coincidental (If any are made).**

**Please enjoy and review, constructive criticism wanted, This is my first story.  
**

**Chapter 1 - Let them come  
**

By order of His most Holy Majesty the God-Emperor of Terra

Has requested the viewing of the following Internal PDF records:

Audio recording of first engagement

Archival ID: Ea634-aS123-GD17I

Location: Bocanh V Northern PDF HQ

Date: 296 M41

Recorded by routine system protocol, process ID 56

Stored in Maria Island Storage facility, zone 12, rack 12304.

+++ Communications opened at 0843 hours. Encryption level Omega +++

"Surveyor Station 16, this is Baseplate, we're identifying a series of faults across our survey systems. We are detecting massive interference over section 11-AB6, please verify, over." _Speaker verified as Colonel Garry Hathorn, Northern PDF HQ._

"Baseplate, this is Surveyor Station 16, we can confirm that the faults are wide spread, all non PDF vox frequencies are unresponsive; possible jam in civilian communications. Unregistered PDF deployments across the sector, PDF units are mobilising. Reports of PDF Divisions 4-9 attacking allied units, damn it, we must evacuate the base-" _Verified as Station Advisor Armahn Helasin. Signal lost at 0846 hours –__ vox relay destroyed__._

+++ Warning: Unregistered data stream detected ... Systems compromised – System locked – Missile command protocols initiated - Launch Detected – Arrival time 1 minute 50 seconds, counting +++

+++ Omega-Zebra-Alpha security clearance detected - overriding all running processes – communication opened with Southern PDF HQ – codename Powerhouse +++

"Shit, Powerhouse, this is Baseplate, we have the Northern PDF forces mobilising without official command, its a damn rebellion! Unable to maintain control over the region. There is a missile launch, our defences are down; only the bloody Governor could have done this, curse the bastard! Mobilise your forces Powerhouse, may the Emperor be with you. This is Colonel Garry Hathorn, may the Emperor walk with yo-"

+++ Communication lost at 0848 hours, explosion recorded at site of Northern PDF HQ, attempting to contact remaining forces ... failed. Nuclear missile launch detected – target – PDF base Hallmah. Casualties: 30,000 personnel, estimated +++

**- ****Present -  
**

The earth trembled under such an intense bombardment, the exploding shells lit up the sky in a deathly spectacle. For with every rumble the shells fell closer to the zigzagging lines of trenches and fortifications; their guns primed and ready, with the mutter of prayers and the barks of orders, soldiers readied themselves for the coming onslaught.

I trudged down the length of muddy trench under my command, it was in a sorry state. The sucking mud consumed everything; in some places even the duckboards where gone to my surprise. With the heavy rain pattering off the gleaming barrels of my squad's various weapons, oblivious to the coming battle, I took one last look at the full length of the section, seeing if any last gaps in our defences could be filled with things other than men, sandbags and weapons. Of course, we weren't the only hapless souls defending this sector; all-in-all the men in this gloomy 2 mile stretch amounted to about 1200 men accompanied by 800 tanks and 300 self-propelled anti-tank guns, a rather large Battalion to my eyes.

Oh yea, me. Hmm, I'm just a pretty ordinary Sergeant, whose name is Boris Vladimir. Don't say it, I know want you're thinking. Boris. Yes sir, blame the parents. Well the troops only know me as Sergeant Vladimir. Thank the Emperor. Also I'm 28 years old; Terra standard. I'd like to think I am fit, well you have to be for this job. My guard-issue shaved head of black hair is neatly covered up by my helmet and I have sparkling blue eyes filled with great intelligence. _Cough, cough_. But I'm going off track; I have a battle to win, I can taste it.

As the enemy bombardment ended, peace reined for a moment across the putrid landscape, before our Earthshakers fired in return, sending a deep rumble across the crater blasted landscape. After only a month in this sorry position (the previous division was obliterated during a bombing raid) I had started to appreciate why the artillery pieces of the Imperial Guard had such a name; my bones knew especially.

As my eyes wonder over to inspect the heavy bolter position, the vox-bead in my helmet mounted headset sparked into life. "Sergeant Vladimir, sir. You have Major Galmann on line 7." I tapped the bead to acknowledge my squad's vox-caster; a young Private Andrew Grain. Then I fiddled with my portable vox-set attached to the breast of my armour.

"Alpha-One, this is Squad Bravo-Dagger-Six, ready for the message over." I spoke into the mike after checking the frequency was on the right setting.

"Bravo-Dagger-Six, this is Alpha-One; Major Galmann speaking. I hope your position is up for it sergeant, aerial reconnaissance indicates that the main thrust is coming at your sector. At least 2500 men with tank support." There was a pause as the static reigned for a matter of seconds. "We're going to try to bring up the reserves to support you but don't hope for much, Emperor be with you, over and out."

I strengthen my hold on my holstered autogun, the adrenaline rushes around my body at the very thought of battle. The ability to smash the Emperor's glorious wrath down upon these heretics was too promising to let slide professionally! But first I have to inform my men. Flicking back to the squad communication I started to speak; "All right you sorry sods, the Emperor has smiled upon us today, we have been granted the honour of facing the main enemy force," a cheer sounded in response. "while they outnumber us in both men and machine, we have the Emperor's eternal light to guide our fire and blades. Let them come, like cows to slaughter. For the Emperor and Imperium!"

The men chorused the phrase back at me, pride swelled in my chest as they turn back to the front; figures of all sizes had started to appear over the shelled landscape, explosions popped up, sending huge plumes of smoke and mud into the air.

The situation faced by the Imperial forces across the board would be considered unsatisfactory by many. With the Planetary Governor, a once respected Graham Lexicus XI; now a traitorous shell of a man had abandoned the guidance of the Emperor and turned to loathsome chaos ways. His betrayal had encouraged the corrupt cartel leaders and PDF commanders to join him. We, the Southern PDF detachment; 12th _Bocanh V_ PDF Army Group, effectively the all the Imperial forces currently on _Bocanh_ had moved up to face this traitorous foe; planning to purge these traitors and resecure the Emperor's land.

Meanwhile, the friendly barrage stopped as soon as it had started. I fumbled with my autogun, yes one of those. We hadn't been graced with weaponry such as the lasgun but the men sitting comfortably back at HQ had bestowed us with heavy weaponry and Carapace armour instead of the standard issue flak vests. While these new suits weighed a tonne and made us untrained men (in using this equipment) look clumsy. To prove my point, my vox-operator stumbled over to me, I turned to regard him as his saluted.

"Sir, the heavy weapons teams report the advancing enemy are in range. Your orders?" He asked me, I edged up onto the fire step and peered over the parapet. With the smoke clearing across the muddy terrain you could clearly see the heretics moving with their tanks rolling up behind, it was surprising to behold that they still kept squad formation, 2 metre spread. That threw my gibbering-fiend stereotype off the table.

"Blast the bastards to hell, tell the AT teams to prioritise the tanks." I told him as I stepped down from the step. He saluted again and started informing the men. Taking the chance before the heavy bolters started, I looked at the men in my section of trench. "When they are in-range, give 'em all you got!"

Then the bolters started, the din was deafening but after a matter of seconds I could already see the results. The heretics dropped in their dozen, the shells exploding among their jumbling bodies; armour, flesh and bone was shredded before my eyes. Through the falling defiled corpses more came, the landscape was now crammed full of running men with the tanks not far behind, no matter the number of heretics cut down, the mass of troops was seemingly unending.

All the more to kill then. Smiling I pulled my autogun to my shoulder, the iron sights at eye-level. With my trigger-finger posed to fire I yelled out. "Fire. Fire at will!" The retort was extreme, the shells from our autoguns peppered the oncoming heretics; who fell into the mud as torsos were ruptured and limbs ripped off. I sighted an oncoming heretic, his unprotected head clearly in my sight; with a crack my autogun recoiled and his head was obliterated into a gory mess. Smiling savagely I took down three more in a similar fashion. It was exhilarating, as the spent casings fell to my feet it was starting to become clear. No matter how many we killed, they would reach our lines.

A searing beam of light cut across my vision; it cut through a tank and ripped the turret off a heretical Leman Russ. Now the enemy was no more than 20 metres from us, growling I flicked my weapon onto full auto and let it rip into the coming heretics. The hail of shells cut more down, their flak vests were unable to stop the onslaught. Reloading I holstered the weapon onto my back and tugged my chain-sword and laspistol from their holsters, thumbing the activation rune on the side of the cross guard the weapon revved into being.

Then they hit us hard. The heretics piled into our trenches while yelling blasphemous war chants. Firing my laspistol in my right hand I punched a heretic down with two las-bolts. With a yell another came at me with a bayonet. Growling I deflected his strike and shot him straight in the face, emptying his skull. With the swing of my roaring chain-sword I dismembered another heretic leaving him headless.

Looking along the trench I saw similar fighting between both sides, it saddens me to say that I saw a couple of my men lying in the sucking mud but we were crushing them.

With a flash of blue plasma, and my dismay; two guardsmen disappeared as their bodies were vaporised. I spun to acquire this new threat, there he was. With blasphemous markings carved into his skin, a heretical officer marched towards me. Readying my blade I stepped forward as he lunged. Blocking his strike from his power sword, I kicked at his knee, with a crack of bone he fell and brought his plasma pistol to bare and fired. Rolling away from the shot, it melted away a patch of mud.

Firing my laspistol I blasted his weapon from his hand. But ignoring his cracked knee his stood up and it was blatantly obvious that it was a bionic. Feet slipping in the mud I lunged at him, swinging the chain-sword at his head. Which he blocked with a bone jarring strike and he smashed his fist into my face.

Where I promptly tumbled into the mud, mentally cursing I blinked away the rain and blood. With my chain-sword discarded out of my reach I fumbled for a weapon. Oblivious to the fighting around him, the heretic advanced towards me.

Feeling the cold metal of a pistol grip, I grinned as he brought his sword to bare. I pulled up the pistol, a plasma pistol to be precise and aimed it at his head. "Die heretic." I snarled as he registered my new weapon, his facial expression said it all.

And I pulled the trigger.

**Well that is my first chapter done, tell me what you think. Until I finish off the second chapter, cheerio.**

**I've been over this chapter and hopefully corrected most of the mistakes, I will be doing the same with chapter 2 too. If any remain, feel free to contact me.**

**Emperor of Man**


	2. Chapter 2: Breach

**Nam Imperator**

**Hello again, a new chapter for you PDF/IG lovers (earlier than I thought). Yes, I had re-read the first chapter and noticed I had made one or two mistakes so my apologies but hey, it adds to the story _cough cough_.**

**Just for those who don't know, PDF stands for Planetary Defence Force.**

**Please enjoy.**

**Chapter 2 – Breach  
**

The body tumbled onto the duckboards, there was blood, a heck a lot of blood at that, every surface was covered as blood spurted out of the body. The shot left the officer's head a hissing mess of gore and bone. Staring at the horrid mess I felt my gorge rise and I turned my head from the scene. Purely out of necessity I kept the plasma pistol in my possession. While I am ashamed to admit that I used a weapon from one of the arch-enemy, I had to stay alive.

I forced myself upwards off the ground, with the ongoing battle around me, it is surprising that I didn't get blasted off my feet. Crouching down I retrieved my fallen chain-sword and scanned the trench; to be honest it was a sorry sight. With shell impacts and bodies discarded like broken puppets, it was horrifying; thankfully I note that there are more heretics lying face down rather than my men. Moving my hand to the side helmet I activate my vox-set and query into it. "Private Grain, Sergeant Vladimir speaking, respond over."

After a heart beat his response came. "Sergeant, Grain here, everything is OK, our section is holding and the traitors are falling back, over."

"Roger that private, what is the condition of the other sections, over?" I reply, I would like to point out that I am watching my surroundings through this, just so you know.

"Section Alpha-Delta-14 has collapsed, command just got off the line, and the reverses are failing to contain the breach. We have no intelligence on the assailants but they seem stronger than the ones here, over." He stated over the line, I am surprised at how quick actions happened in such a short time.

Then I noticed it, a faint difference in the sound of battle, a heavy rumble; barely audible over our distance from the breach. I felt my body go rigid, hoping my worst fears were not just realised. _Bolters_. It better not ... it can't be.

_Traitor Astartes_.

I flick back onto the comms. "Troopers Hadin, Favin, Folks and Galshaan relocate at position..." I had to remember now... gah! I really hate bad memory. "position Gamma-65-AF. Private Grain you're acting leader for the rest of the squad, hold this position and don't lose it." A chorus of "Yes sir!" followed my command. I have a hunch that I would need this cursed pistol after all.

I start to trudge through the muddy trench, where the mud had started to feel water-logged; every step making you feel like there were hungry maws sucking at your boots. The sky streaked with gruesome lights, parts looked like a rocket strike of sorts but it still looked unearthly and tainted. No wonder if my hunches are right. Continuing down the trench network; I pass all types of different situations, from organised men to ones weeping in their deliria, but mostly there were scenes of utter bedlam as medics tried to save countless lives, with limbs missing and gaping wounds I hardly doubted to whether they were going to die.

Passing a crater I saw four crouching figures; all clad in standard-issue PDF equipment, one turned to me as I approached. "Sir," he saluted smartly, "Trooper Hadin reporting. The breach is in the trenches beyond this crater, approximately 100 metres due east. Folks has eye-ball on the encroached bastards; it's mainly mortal forces near us but further into the bulge there seems to be heavier fighting." I nodded in response and crawled up to the lip of the crater, pulling up against Folks.

Peering over the lip a horrid stench hit me. I tried to retch; though thankfully I recognised it as not human flesh but rather a sickening stench coming from Folks. I found the source, he chewed on a black sticky substance, probably a narcotic but my reasoning is that I let it slide, it is hardly the situation for a talking-down. Hadin came up beside me clutching his helmet tightly onto his head and he turned to me. "We'll have to push through about 15 heretics to get to the main breach; they've put up a smoke screen; obviously to cover their main advance."

Folks turned to him, pulling his eyes from his binoculars. "Frag you Hadin. You can't count for throne; I'd say 'bout 20 'tics." I gave him a stare, '_'tics_'? He surely meant heretics right?

"That's barely any difference." I tell him and he grinned like a madman but before I turn to the rest of the squad, I made a last comment to him. "You're nuts. OK, Folks, Hadin and Galshaan provide over-watch, Favin; you're with me. Maintain 10 metre spread." I got nods from the group and I raked the operating rod back of my autogun and let the blot slam home. "Alright, move."

The two of us scrabbled over the lip of the crater as Folks, Hadin and Galshaan provided cover. We quickly moved across down into the trench system; which there remained little of, just a stretch of shell cratered land. We stopped at 10 metres from below the crater behind us, with a wave of my hand Folk and Galshaan moved past us while we provided over-watch; during which I scanned the landscape with my autogun. This process was repeated until we got about 30 metres in. Then our luck ran out.

They came at us like frenzied beasts; howling madmen with weapons which could be only considered to be spiked clubs. With the sharp crack of las-fire four tumbled to the ground as they died, I punched another off their feet with a hard round. The remaining heretics fell as another few rounds of las-fire picked them off. We pause for a moment, waiting for any more to appear and assault us, I turn and nod at Hadin, he Galshaan and Folks move up and across the body strewn land. A sound assailed my ears; with the rumble of a vehicle a Chimera swept out of the mud of the battlefield and pulled up alongside them, thankfully the vehicle showed Imperial insignias printed on the hull. The troop rear door hissed open smoothly and a squad disembarked.

While the squad maintained a tight perimeter around us the sergeant moved towards us. He whipped off the face piece of his gas mask; his features were grim and battle scarred. "Sergeant Vladimir it is good to see you. I'm in command of squad 8A of the 12th reserve platoon. I assume that you are here to help in clearing up these traitorous dogs, yes?" His voice had a strange drawl of a hive-spire worker to it.

I nodded to his question. "Aye sergeant Cromwellen, that we are." I raised my arm and pointed over to the north, the direction of the breach. "We can't confirm what bastards have broken through but I think they would be en masse." At this he chuckled and stomped over to observe the area I directed to, I didn't follow; it was too open.

Laughing he motioned out into the crawling smoke screen. "You got to be kidding sergeant. We all know that these warp-traitorous fools are hardly a threat. I'd happily ride into that puny smoke screen and gun down all those heretics myself." He pulled out a Lho stick from the webbing on his breast at his boast, as he snapped his lighter open and the flame guzzled up the air around it, my fears were unleashed.

With a deafening boom of constant heavy bolter fire, the sergeant and the men closest to him were shredded apart, mass-reactive bolts cut into the reserve squad and the hull of the Chimera. The slaughter was horrific, Folks, Galshaan and Hadin also fell to the bolt's deadly explosions, their armour and bodies were cut into bloody ribbons. Favin yelped out in fear as he scrambled for the cover of the Chimera along with the others. I yelled out to him to stop, hoping he would get some sense but I could really do nothing but scrape further into the mud for protection.

I was thankful for that moment of digging, just as Favin crouched behind the Chimera's cover, a streak of fire shot out from the smoke screen. The missile hit the turret with a horrendous explosion, the fuel stores ignited and a ball of fire poured out of the shattered hull, consuming everything around it. Including poor Favin, bless his soul.

With the sound of popping explosions from within the Chimera I haul myself over a lip of a crater, thankful of this new found cover I look at my assets. Plasma pistol, too long of a range to be any use. Chain-sword, get real; I couldn't kill a traitor Astartes (of course this is an assumption). A heretic junior officer was one thing, but Astartes (so is this) were on a totally different level.

Then I noticed it; lying on its side was a lascannon. Ho boy. Grinning at my newly formed plan I crawled down to it. Checking the weapon I found that it was powered on and the green light of the power pack showed that it was fully charged. Normally you would need a three-man squad to haul this weapon around, so feel for me as I lugged this weapon up to the crater edge. Using the weapons tripod I mounted the lascannon on a rock at the lip; using the armour plate as my only protection I aimed at the smoke screen. Ugly figures twisted in and out of the smoke, I couldn't tell who they were but from their size it made me terrified. My palms felt sweaty; even though they were glowed I still managed to slip my grip on the firing studs.

I aligned the sights onto a figure as it burst out from the screen; it was like a glaring figure of hatred. It's black power armour had a sickly look about it; with the spikes and grotesque skulls littering their armour. Blatant marks of the cursed legions covered their armour; I felt my stomach lurch sickeningly as one caught my eye; an eight-pointed star.

Growling at the terror I felt; I pressed the activation stud, the weapon had barely any recoil but the las-beam was fired true. The traitor marine was blasted apart; barely any part of him remained. I claimed my first kill of the cursed traitor Astartes. Leaving the lascannon where it was I slid down from the craters edge to scour the bottom for another power pack. I found two bodies half-covered in the earth; scrapping off the mud on one I found a large satchel under it. Heaving the body off I pulled the satchel out of the ground, ripping open the cover it revealed two intact power packs. With my find I slithered back up to the lascannon, you could hear the bolts slam into both the metal plate and the earth near me. Disconnecting the spent pack I attached a new one and the green light blinked on again. Peering over the lip of the crater I scanned the area for the next target.

After my shot, the rest of the figures had scrambled into cover, hopefully fearful of this new threat. Yes, I know a lascannon is a bit of an overkill but what else could I do? Then I saw one, he was ramming a rocket into a launcher, no chance. Zeroing on this new target I pressed the studs again and his head and chest disappeared in a beam of light. Striking the air with my fist I pulled out the last pack and connected it up. The firing had increased as they came out of their cover. I aimed at another when a shell ripped into my left shoulder; shattering the carapace shoulder guard and pierced into my flesh. Yelling out I misfired and the beam went high into the sky.

I collapsed and tumbled back down into the crater, the lascannon was ripped from its mount and it followed after me. I rolled to a stop, I shook the dizziness and pain from my head; the stomps of terror came closer and I bet that they would be on me at any moment. My eyes latched onto an exit, a small trench entrance which lead out of the crater and you guessed it, my legs started to move. I clambered around the trench corner when whizzing bolts swept past me.

I ran like a madman, running full pelt across the battlefield. Caring not for who I past, just to get away from those monsters. The the sky suddenly blinded me and something slammed into my back. The back-plate cracked at the force and I crashed into the mud like a tank speeding into a wall. Then the sound-wave rammed into me, a rumbling boom of huge proportions. It was deafening and it left me disorientated and well of course; deaf.

Moaning I pulled myself out of my muddy abyss. Turning I saw the reason for my fall, a huge mushroom cloud soared into the sky. An aircraft swept across the sky; a Marauder Bomber. Man I felt safe, climbing onto my knees I scanned the land behind me, searching for any more of the monsters. More explosions sounded off in the distance, it sounded like they were bombing the heretics to hell and back.

I shuffled off back to the reserve lines, actually to be honest I didn't know where I was going. The explosion had left me directionally dumb, of course this is a one off; it does not happen all the time.

I trudged on for about a good 15 minutes, well that is by my chronometer. But actually saying that, I couldn't help but notice a fortified position about 50 metres to my south. Finally, some place to go. I made my way over and as I neared the sandbagged wall I could see smoke rise from within the emplacement. I stepped around the wall and looked in. And I froze. Shit, about six heretics had made camp around a fire and they were all paused in mid activity, they stared at me with mixed horror. I stared back and this became a small staring match, waiting for the first one to move.

Which of course, I naturally did. Tugging a frag grenade off my webbing I pulled off the grenade pin, sod the damn timer and holy prayer of Ignition. Lobbing the primed and ticking grenade at them I fled back around the wall. The grenade exploded; throwing up dirt and mud. Readying my autogun I leaned around the wall and observed the carnage. They were all dead, well, from what I could count from the mess. Let's just say all that was left was a pile of body parts and a few buckets of blood.

I verbally sighed as I felt the adrenaline boost fade from my system. A sound of engines could be heard from behind me, to be exact as I turned around; Valkyrie engines. The mighty aircraft dropped to the ground with a hiss of the landing feet squeezed under its weight. A squad departed from its troop compartment as the engines whined down.

I recognised the first man immediately; he wore pressed combat fatigues, carapace armour, a cloak of black silk and iron-capped boots. He sported a peaked cap emblazoned with the Imperial aquila. His hardened features showed amazing intelligence and experience. Armed with a bolt pistol and a sheathed power sword he looked mighty menacing. I saluted smartly to the Major of the Southern PDF 2nd Infantry Division; Major Adam Galmann.

"It is good to see you sergeant, smashing work out there, we need more men like you." He smiled grimly. "Because things have just got worse."

**Well that is the second chapter over and done with. The next chapter should hopefully be longer but don't hold me to that, hope you enjoyed it.**

**Emperor of Man**


	3. Chapter 3: Briefing

** Nam Imperator**

Right, sorry (anyone who is reading this) about the long wait. I got caught up with a-level stuff (_cough_ coursework _cough_). Hope you enjoy.

Any mistakes, my apologies before hand.

**Chapter 3 - Briefing**

My muscles ached after the long ride in the dim troop compartment of the Valkryie. Thankfully my wounded shoulder had been attended to by the command squad medic, tightly bandaged; it was hard to move but it is far better than bleeding out. Looking out through from the transport I could see we were far from the front lines but rather in the PDF HQ at Maria Island, due to the ceaselessness and rustle of base life, I hadn't noticed that the journey had taken an hour.

I waited for the Major to leave the Valkryie transport first, a common sign of respect. Turning around I observed the rest of my squad; during our trip back we had picked them up from the trenches as the reserves had pushed up and secured the position from the rear. Eyeing the men left in my squad it was obvious that we were going to be considered by a 'leftovers' squad by company command, in other words we're going to be merged with another half-destroyed squad, yippee! I hope you can see that my comment was dripping in sarcasm.

Anyway, we stepped out of the aircraft on the plascrete ground surface of one of the six landing platforms, air crews and servitors milled around us, tending to their craft. Now, from what I am guessing you're pretty confused at where I am, let me do the honours. Imagine a two-by-two square-ish area, the bottom-left section is my present location, this area is called PDF Navy Control or PDFNC, it is all a load of rubbish to us ground troops, they're just fly-boys to us. Here is practically the local space port, 3 hangers, a control tower/bunker; you decide and the six landing pads.

The bottom-right square is the guard barracks and armouries, my main area of interest. Then it is the PDF Ground Command and the Storage facility (god knows what goes on in there) at the top-right and then it's the motor-pool top-left. As you'd expect the entire facility is protected in a ring of fortifications, rockcrete walls, mine fields and rolls upon rolls of razor wire, not to mention the air defences. Also the base is practically an island with only the routes of access being a great bridge, the airbase and the water, good luck with the latter one, its mined.

Now the actual architecture of the whole place is pretty normal by guard-standards; a grim, looming blotch of grey buildings and fortifications. Well I know where I would want to be if we were under attack. I blink out of my thoughts as I realise that the Major and his retinue of adepts, scribes and guardsmen had moved away. Waving an order at my squad we moved to follow but the major had stopped and he turned back to us. "Sergeant, get your men to their barracks," He stared at my tattered and battle-worn uniform. "Also get yourself cleaned up, I've got a briefing with the General at 1640 hours, I want you to be there, your invaluable experience will be needed."

"Yes sir." I barked as I saluted, he returned it and marched off. Turning I look at my squad, they looked exhausted. "You lot, get to your bunks, clean up and get some kip." They saluted and forged their way to their hab shelters.

Now I do believe one would think that there are some inconsistencies in the leadership of the Planetary Defence Forces of Bocanh V. Let me explain, Major Galmann was second-in-command of our regiment that was until the rebellion took hold and claimed a Colonel Daniel Woltenstein, our first-in-command. Major Galmann had to just step up into the position or the ensuing power vacuum would have caused a lot more problems. And yes, the general who was spoken of is a Kurt Woodstone, a beast of a man. He was originally the leader of the guard forces in the system, but due to a better alternative (a general who was better than him), the Administratum ordered that he should gain the position of the overall PDF commander instead. A decision that he will never let go.

I made my way to the NCO barracks; a small squat building of grey rockcrete located about 30 metres from the guardsmen barracks, a bit pointless to me as it separated the leaders from the squad but oh well.

Now a few question marks may have been raised about my 'valuable experience'. Well to be completely honest, I was originally part of the Imperial Guard (the main one, not PDF). I had been recruited along with millions of others to go off and fight in some brutal war because of Bocanh's tithe grade. It was suddenly decided that 50,000 men, me included, out of the five million forming the tithe were to be moved to crush an alien incursion, which took about four gruesome years to accomplish. Then the remaining forces were spread about the system's PDF forces; 'to get the most out of them' the High Command said. That is how I ended up here as a soldier of Bocanh V's PDF. So actually, wouldn't that make me a Veteran Sergeant? I don't know really.

I stopped in front of the steel doors of the barracks; tugging my ID card from a pocket on my webbing I swipe it over the card reader. The pict-display flashed green and the doors opened with only an audible hiss as they slid open on their greased rails. I stepped into the corridor and the doors closed behind me. I walked past the manned security checkpoint; the guardsman stood with his lasgun primed and ready, he gave me a nod as I walked past which I returned.

Moving through another set of blast doors I enter the main complex, my barrack room was B4. I moved towards my block, well actually it is a shared barracks for all the sergeants of 2nd Infantry Division; we're split into our companies and divisions you see.

Signing through the security door of our room I am met with a group of about six men all partaking in different activities, be it sleeping, talking, cleaning kit or changing. I nodded at some as they look up at me. I walk over to my cot; nothing special really, just a blanket and a rough mattress on a steel bed frame, under it I kept a small metal locker for my sentimental possessions; which wasn't many.

Dumping my pistol and carapace jacket into my bedding I stretched, I had to relieve myself of my autogun and chainsword to an adept from the armoury at the landing pad; some regulation we had to follow but our rank allowed us to keep the only our armour jacket and side arm for protection. Walking over to one of the equipment lockers on the wall at the far end of the room, I make a bee line for my named locker. Opening it, I take a spare clean uniform out of the locker and dump my chronometer and dog tags onto the top shelve. A series of footsteps bring my attention away from my locker and I turn to presented with another sergeant; a young man stood opposite me with his arms folded across his chest, a cocksure smile stamped onto his boyish features. "Alright Boris," his smile grew even bigger, "so the old git managed to survive, when are you going to die?

"Keep wishing Karl. You won't be rid of me just yet." I rebuked, he chuckled and brushed a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"Heh, nice. I congratulate you, never thought you managed to survive the breach. We all know the little enterprise you undertook, a bit risky but isn't that what you ex-guard bunch are like?" He stared me in the eyes.

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, closing the locker as well.

"Well, we all know the cursed arch-enemy is a mighty force-" He started.

"Watch what you are saying sergeant, the commissariat doesn't take lightly the words your choosing." I warned, knowing full well that even our rooms were bugged, after the traitorous uprising the commissariat had cracked down on all military and administratum personnel. No one was protected from them now. But I'm not saying that there was no commissariat or that they were useless before, its just that the situation has called for a certain increase in monitoring and restrictions of said personnel.

"Ahem," He cleared his throat. "well it is just surprising that you could survive such an encounter. You were up against traitor marines, not some cultists. How did you do it?" He asked, now it was obvious that he was looking for a fight. Ah yes, I haven't introduced him yet, nothing special, just sergeant Karl Kähten, from a noble family; that should really explain a lot. Now that I think about it, he always had a sneer of disgust plastered on his face, probably because he was conscripted into the PDF and not the guard, its all about glory these days, where is the honour of fighting for the Emperor?

I stared him in the eyes and told him. "By using the skills granted upon me, the Emperor guided my blade to slay the enemies of the Imperium. I believed in the Emperor's power, only people riddled with doubt would have been killed."

He glared back at me, knowing if he tried to get back at me he would surely compromise himself. I left that hanging in the air, the fuming sergeant's eyes bore into my back as I moved away off to the shower block.

Now I'm not really going to go in depth about what happened after that but I'll sum it up briefly for you. I had cleaned and smartened myself up, got changed into a fresh kit. Karl was not present when I got back to the block, which was good; it meant that the twit wouldn't breathe down my neck the whole time. There was something wrong with that guy.

After kitting up I left the block house. The door guard gave me a nod as I left, checking my chronometer I noticed I had 40 minutes until the briefing, well time flies when your having fun. Marching back out into the compound, re-equipped with my carapace jacket and pistol, I turn my attention back to the looming bunker complex, gun turrets dotted its exterior as they tracked both ground and air targets. By no doubt one had me in their cross-hairs, some servitor beeping away as it listed me on a target ID list, just waiting for the open fire command which I hope would never come.

I moved across to the checkpoint leading to the HQ. About 5 soldiers armed the point, 2 in front of the adamantium gate, a small rockcrete bunker sat to the left with possibly more soldiers, the remaining soldiers armed gun posts to the right, a heavy bolter swivelled around to face me. On of the soldiers wave to me, a clear order to stop and he motioned for another to move forward.

The soldier moved closer, his lasgun was raised and pointing at my chest. "Don't move soldier. Show me some ID and state your business."

I slowly tugged my ID from the webbing on my chest and handed it over to him, which he inspected. "I'm here for the briefing with General Woodstone at 1640, orders from Major Gulmann."

He let his lasgun sag on its strap around his chest as he pulled an ID reader from his belt and scanned my card. None of us moved as the reader churned it's database for my ID and it pinged when it finished. "Right sergeant, move along and collect a pass from the hut, you have to out of the complex by 1800 hours. Get a pass from the guard in the hut." He handed me back my ID and a receipt.

I marched off to the bunker and opened the door, I could feel the eyes of a few of the soldiers on duty staring at me, in case I made any wrong moves. I moved into the bunker and a guard stood, he had a cocked pistol in his belt holster. I handed him the receipt and he placed it into a machine of some sort. No less than a minute later he handed back a pass which I clipped onto my chest plate, we saluted and I moved out.

The gate rumbled down as I moved closer, the moment I stepped through the gateway it shot upwards with a furious speed and force. Thank the Emperor I was over it, must be some ancient pressure system. Now I was in the confines of the outer sanctum of the PDF HQ.

Now that I'm in the compound you can finally realise how big the complex was. It was a monstrosity of bunkers and towers. It was taller than the grandest spires from my home world, the highest section of the tower reached just under the cloud cover; hydra gun turrets mounted the sides of the tower, I'm guessing that there would be series of landing platforms sitting atop of the tower. Not for our use. I drew my eyes away from the top and down closer to the ground of the tower, there; presented to me was a colossus gateway. A great door blocked the entrance, for which I can only guess to be used for the great Titans owned by the Collegia Titanicaback in the days of the Grand Crusade. Well that was all I could think that its purpose would be.

Shaking my head in awe I moved off through the outer compound, I passed dozens of habitation blocks and motor pools. One thing I did take notice of was the different insignia which the soldiers carried, instead of the Bocanh V PDF badge, it was a chevron above a skull set in a metal cog. I didn't know their division and I didn't particularly care. They probably had some affiliation with the Adeptus Mechanicus as the the site used to be Titan facility but my job description doesn't cover this inspections.

It took me a good 20 minutes to navigate through the mass of traffic, patrols and busybodies to the main entrance for humans. Here I was presented again with another guard post, this time I had to go through both ID and genetic checks before I was passed, I also had my weapon and armour taken from me and locked up in the gate armoury, again.

After manoeuvring through the innards of the complex, I passed great halls, ancient and hulking machinery and thousands of men. I took the main elevator to the desired floor, 221. That in itself, took a good 10 minutes. I scan the length of the corridor, all the doors were closed and three guards patrolled the corridor; one at each end with the third placed opposite the elevator. I saw Major Gulmann some way down on my left and I moved off towards him, the guard saluted me as I passed him.

Reaching the major I saluted sharply, which he returned. "Very punctual of you sergeant." He noted looking at his chronometer. "The rest are in the room but the general has yet to arrive."

I nodded and remained at attention. We heard the rumbling and grating of the elevator and it lumbered to a halt at our floor. A small group marched out, an assembly of adepts, scribes and four storm troopers accompanied the general. He was a rather stocky man of about 100 years, though he looked 40. Clad in thick plates of carapace he looked a mighty figure, I note that he still had his wrist-mounted storm bolter and his power sword, I'm guessing its some rank privilege.

He stopped by us at we all saluted at each other, all at once, not some horrid triangle thing where we did it separately at each other and spend an hour doing so.

"Major Gulmann, is it all ready?" He grumbled, his voice was like the rumble of artillery in the distance.

"Yes sir, everyone is inside and the room is ready for you." Gulmann confirmed and we all entered the room, it was rather spacious. In the centre of the circular room stood a table, it supported both material maps and a holographic projector. About three men stood around the table, they wore similar uniforms but there was a critical difference between some of them; their weight. Now, it is obvious to some that the over-large fat officer is generally one of those snotty nobles. By any chance you thought this, then your spot on; Major Gregory Blankhof, the commander of the Primary Divisio Primo Catafractatus, First Primary Armoured Division to you and me. He was an arrogant man who had a problem with everyone except the general, who he always tried to rub up with if he had the chance.

Moving away from that lump of living fat there was a commander of the PDF Auxiliary forces, Major Authrus Bolchick. He, would be a better man of the Imperium, knew how to work with his men and an overall good commander. Next to him stood a hunched, cloaked figure; he is the overall commander of Maria Island, a Magos Bitacnux. No one knew his first name and he barely talks, he just observes. Then you plus me, the general and the major then you get six men. That is a lot of testosterone around one table.

"OK officers, if you thought you knew the situation yesterday and this battle would be won within the next few weeks, you might want to reconsider your decision." He walked over to the map table and checked the map, we filed in behind him and crowded around the table. "Now, Major Bolchick, what's the situation of the Auxiliary forces?"

"Sir, control has been secured among all hive cities across the southern hemisphere. The situation is generally clear as any insurgents are quickly put down," he referred to his data slate. "there have been about 50 individual incidents across the hives. However, at the Monthus Manufactorum district, 4th Auxiliary division report that there has been a sizeable assault by mortal forces in that area who managed to secure a sizeable pocket in the area but they have managed to hold them back."

The general pondered on this, his fingers tapped on the metal trip of the table. "Right, assign 5th Auxiliary Armoured division to assist, have them push through the district and surround the enemy; cutting off their escape routes and crush those heretics." He then turned to observe Blankhof. "OK major, how are the advances into the flat planes going?"

"Well glorious General Woodstone, by the gracious will of the divine Emperor, our armoured forces smashed into and cast the cursed enemy asunder. We scored many kills in the Emperor's name but we lost many-" He stopped as he noticed the general's raised hand.

"Leave your romantic speeches for the paperwork major, just give me an operational summary."

Blankhof coughed, his face turned red in his embarrassment of the general's order. "Yes sir," He straighten his back. "all armoured divisions report successes in all current operations, only heretic Planetary Defence Forces have been encountered so far."

"Good major." The general activated the holographic display unit (HDU) which punched a 3D layout of a complex, by my trained eye I could clearly see it as the PDF Yeltsine Space port. "Now, referring back to what I spoke of earlier, if you don't know this is the PDF Space port situated near the front lines, this position has proved to be critical to our efforts in operations now and in the future. The negative aspect is that we lost all contact with the Auxiliary forces present within the complex, aerial reconnaissance clearly suggests that the complex has been lost to the enemy.

"You all know what I'm going to say now. We need this position retaken. I've generated a plan of operation, Auxiliary and armoured units will tie up the ground forces and the defence perimeter, Blankhof, you will be leading this part of the operation." He then motioned to the space port's walls. "If you gain access to the complex then consolidate on that position and then systematically take out the defence grid."

"Affirmative, sir." The major replied.

"Now, majors Gulmann and Bolchick, you both will be leading the assault on the main facilities of the complex." He brought parts of the complex up onto the hologram. "The main targets are the hangers, the landing ports and both the control and defence towers. Expect strong resistance from all of these targets."

Major Gulmann finally spoke up. "What resistance is expected?"

"Hmm, intelligence suggests that the main enemy force comprises of heretics and cultists but as we don't know how they managed to over take the base, so expect the possibility of stronger forces. As your division has faced them during that attack, we don't know what we are up against."

"Sir, how will we insert?" Major Bolchick chirped up, ready to take notes on his data slate.

"Well, Bolchick you will insert by Valkyrie transports on the complex ground and secure the hangers and assist Major Gulmann if necessary." He turned to Gulmann. "Major, you and your forces too will be inserting by Valkyrie transports but you will be focusing on the control towers and securing those without any major damage to them."

He turned to address the whole group. "Now if, by the sordid chance that those heretic bastards have corrupted the space port's systems then we'll have to blow it. That is our main priority; take control of the port without the systems being scuttled by the enemy.

"Also, I would like to inform you that the Departmento Munitorum has confirmed that reinforcements are en-route from the surrounding systems, while conscript forces from the other system planets are good for now it is clearly not enough, due to the current circumstances, this crisis has been deemed by the Administratum as a code Black situation. I fear gentlemen, the Inquisition will be involved, we must cleanse this world of the mighty God-Emperor of these heretics before they arrive. Only by the grace of the God-Emperor may we pull through this mess, alive. The operation starts at 0400 hours, make sure you are ready, we won't wait for anyone."

He salutes at us and spoke. "The Emperor protects."

XXX

That is it, another chapter done. You guessed it, big fight in the next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4: Strike hard

**Nam Imperator**

**You can find the German translations in this chapter (and any other chapters) at the end of the page.**

**I've moved the tense of the story to first-person, past tense. I've done this so it will be better (hopefully), easier for me and to make the story less 'choppy and difficult to follow'. There was a lot of face-palming when I went back and read the other chapters.**

**Chapter 4 – Strike hard**

There was an awesome sound of the Valkyrie's twin F75-MV After-burning Vector-Turbojets as the pilot brought his craft to a hover over one of the last intact landing pads which was not littered with flaming aircraft or dimpled with shell craters.

The populated areas beyond the Space port's outer wall were systematically devastated by the constant battling between foes; flames licked cruelly at the blackening sky; rockets, shells and missiles shot upwards in a strangely beautiful deathly ballet in the sky only to come streaking down with fearsome forces which could crush even the mightiest defences, instead only to come crashing into the civilian populated hab spires which surrounded the space port and bought whole areas tumbling to the ground. Those unfortunates who were not able to flee the heretics.

I carefully unclasped a matte black rebreather mask from the transports armoury and hooked it onto my helmet as the Valkyrie lowered downwards to the platform, with a hiss of the helmet pressurising an icon flashed on my visor as it powered up, indicating 10 seconds till touchdown. I turned to the eleven other men, made up from various leftovers, who had been bundled into the troop compartment and gave them a thumbs up and they returned it, with the odd one or two swearing instead. I couldn't help but chuckle.

On a side note, Private Andrew Grain was not present on this operation. The general had him transferred to the Major's squad, they were a vox-operator short. So, we had a replacement, I didn't know his name and I would think he wanted that.

The Valkyrie touched down onto the charred rockcrete surface of the landing platform with a tremendous thump, I; Sergeant Boris Vladimir and my band of eleven, well trained and equipped soldiers of His Imperial Guard, unit Bravo-Dagger-Six from the Southern PDF 2nd Infantry Division, under the service of the beneficent God Emperor of Man, saviour of Mankind._ That was a mouthful_. Jumped out onto the platform to blast any heretic who dares stand in the way of our cleansing might. Well that was in hindsight how I had liked it to have panned out, instead the platform, my men and the Valkyrie were shredded before my very eyes as we stepped off the transport and an autocannon opened up from a sandbagged position. I, in a desperate attempt to save my skin, threw myself to the ground as the high-explosive shells pummelled into everything and anyone.

My head swam as I scrabbled to find cover from this storm of slugs and shells, I tilted my head and heard the Valkyrie's engines roar as the pilot attempted to evade the fire and gain altitude. But his attempts were in vain, as the autocannon shells ripped into the thrusters; the rear of the Valkyrie exploded. A rolling ball of fire smashed into me and melted the black camo paint off my back-plate of my carapace armour. Gasping for air, I used the black smoke as cover to roll off the edge of the platform into the cargo area between the landing pads.

Still dazed from the bone-jarring explosion, I tried to grasp this new situation. Groping for my lasgun, I found it missing; lost in the rolling inferno behind me. As a growl rumbled from my throat. I tugged my laspistol from my belt and checked the power pack. Gripping the pistol tightly in both hands I slipped from the cover of a crate. Looking forwards and getting my bearings I was rudely confronted by two guardsmen, well heretical bastards to be correct. A yell of surprise rose from one as I plugged his face with a well aimed lasbolt. The other was more aware and fired two rounds from his autogun at me, it was either I was lucky or the Emperor was watching me. He had shit aim, and I sent a lasbolt through his chest and throat.

As the bodies were falling, I was already moving and snatched up the fallen autogun, exchanging some clips from his vest webbing with my now unneeded power cells. Finding the functionality of the weapon was good I pulled the weapon to my shoulder and walked onwards.

Which was, I realised, a problem. Just as I heard the roar of an engine, I threw myself to the rockcrete floor and crawled behind a metal crate. Roughly 10 metres from my position, a scorched Chimera rolled to a stop. Through the din of the turret mounted multi-laser firing off into the distance, the back door wheezed open and a squad of heretics tumbled out. The squad fanned out, following standard tactica tactics. Figuring, I was obviously outnumbered and out-gunned.

Trying to gather a good way to escape this situation, I couldn't help but think about how this operation got so screwed. The plan was simple, us – strike force to take key facilities across the capitals surface, we had been assigned as Bravo-Dagger-Six. Our overall task was was to recapture the major space port, but our, no, my task was to regain control of the control towers south of the main launch pads. It will be interesting, to say the least.

My train of thought broke as the squad ran past my hiding place, luckily the Chimera moved on too. Orders where barked from the squad leader for the team to fan out.

I felt the urge to blast their heads off one-by-one, but reality gained the upper-hand and I shuffled further into my hide. Four heretics marched closer to me, the squad-vox pieces in their helmets squawked into life.

"Sektor ist klar, bereit zum nächsten Wegpunkt zu bewegen." One paused for a moment. "Bejahend, bestätigt Wegpunkt." He motioned to the others.  
"Er ist hier in der Nähe, wo ihn, lassen Sie sich nicht den falschen Gott-Anbeter überleben!"

I had to do a double-take, that wasn't the planetary standard language, it sounded like the dribble which the Korpsmen of the Death Korps come out with. Why were there off-worlders here, helping the enemy?

Leaving the question floating in my mind I got back to the task, I moved forwards towards the bunker. That damn autocannon started up again, firing off its deadly shells off into the distance. Moving around a corner, I saw that I was closer to the immediate target. Coming up out of the cargo area, I sprinted across the open area between me and the bunker. I gave a look at the people occupying the area as I sped past, or for a better word corpses. Men and women, fortunately no children; were struck up on poles with their clothes torn from their bodies. In between the dried blood, cuts and their bared insides, I noticed with a stomach turning feeling that someone that kindly gone over their bodies with a knife, carving the blasphemous runes of chaos into them.

I felt mentally sick after barely looking at the runes, a burning desire to crush these heretics grew, no amount of propaganda pumped out by the Guard Commissariat could prepare anyone for the filth you'd find. Adding this, for a better metaphor, as fuel to my now ever growing fiery hatred I tugged a frag grenade from the webbing around my waist. Pressing my back to the cold hard rockcrete surface of the bunker I ripped off and dropped the pin, cooking the grenade for 2 seconds I pulled back my arm lobbed it through the firing slit.

With a massive crack, the grenade tore the front off the bunker, I threw myself to the ground as the debris' pattered off my armoured back. That made me think, had I kitted myself out with something other than frag grenades? It didn't matter, they worked well.

The heretics would react quickly to that, while they may have mostly turned into blubbering blasphemous mass of a man, they still withheld PDF combat knowledge.

I scrabbled back to my feet as the dust settled and ran over to the side of the bunker, I jumped down into the rockcrete trench. I scanned both directions with my autogun, and found it clear. I advanced past the usual objects of military life which cluttered the trench to the entrance of the bunker. I had to make sure it was clear, so it posed no more of a threat.

I slapped a small demo-pack onto the Plasteel door. It was a small compact explosive device, placed by the locking mechanism for the best effectiveness. After reaching suitable cover I detonated the charge. The door blew open with a concussive force, I bundled through the billowing smoke and saw a heretic stumble into my direction. I rammed into him and he hit the ground with a crunch, I rolled to the side as las-fire peppered where I'd been. The fallen heretic lived for only a second as his comrades blasted him to pieces.

By doing this, they had revealed themselves to me. I brought up my autogun and blasted a heretic with a shotgun in the face; as his body tumbled to the floor, I fired two shots into another as he turned his lasgun to me.

I spun around and countered a knife strike to my gut with the stock of my gun, I hit out with my fist and my knuckles smashed into the heretic's cheek bone; cracking it and he yelped out in pain. I stepped sideways to his outer-side and snapped his elbow with a strike from mine and I snatched his knife from his now useless hand. I rammed the blade into his throat and whacked the handle with a palm strike. The blade embedded further into his throat as he fell to the ground gurgling.

I put a solid round through his head. His brains splattered across the floor.

I surveyed the bunker, clear.

I moved back out of the bunker, I jumped over the side of the trench and moved off into the space port. I kept low to the ground, trying to gain as much cover as I could.

But, considering my luck, I was never good at any dice games which the men play back in the barracks; a Chimera rolled into sight. Let's just say, they weren't friendly. My careful movement turned into a full sprint, straight for a crater. I could tell that that the Chimera's turret was traversing to follow me, the hum of the multi-laser power cells grew as the gunner primed them to blast me apart.

Again, the dice rolls weren't with me as my foot caught a piece of Plasteel piping lying on the ground. I smashed full-pelt into the ground, I tasted blood but the gunner's shot whizzed over me and cracked harmlessly against a pile of rubble.

I frantically crawled across the rubble strewn ground, the las-fire of the Chimera peppered the ground around me, flinging flakes of rockcrete upwards in plumes of dust. After a minute of scrabbling through the rubble, I clambered over the rim of the crater and tumbled in.

There was a yelp of sudden surprise and I swung my autogun up. Only to be met with eleven lasguns. Thankfully, their operators were a bunch of scared PDF Auxiliary troopers, my relief was short-lived as one of the troopers yelled out a warning. "Hostiles disembarking from transport."

I turned and look at each of them, none of them looked like a non-commissioned officer. So, I had to ask. "Where's your sergeant, trooper?" To ask one.

He answers with some hesitation. "Dead, sir. A sniper got him."

I gave a nod and grinned. "Well, just your luck. I'm a bit squad-less and I am in need of one." The trooper's face lit up in surprise.

I turned over onto my belly and motioned to three other troopers. "Right, you three will provide covering fire on those heretics from this position." I turned again and gestured to another five troopers. "You lot will flank left and get to a good position before opening up on the bastards, wait for my command."

"The rest of you, you'll be with me and we'll make around to the right and get them as well." I wait a second to see if any questions were needed. "OK, move out."

We all moved, off into the different directions. The crack of las-fire gave us the thankful covering fire which forced the heretics to hug the ground. We scrabbled over the ground and dumped ourselves into a well positioned crater. I look over to the trooper who I had first conversed with. "What's your vox channel?"

"Alpha-Quanta-56, sir." He replies and I reconfigure my embedded vox-set to the channel.

"This is sergeant Vladimir, all units in position?" A series of 'Yes sir.' in my answer and I give my men a thumbs up. "All units, commence the attack."

Both, us and the other team through our fire-power at the heretics. Over the cracks of las-fire I heard a heretic yell a warning which sounded awfully like 'Achtung!' How many off-worlders were there?

Our combined fire cut down a few of them before the others could move to reposition themselves. The Chimera had moved off, obviously they had thought that had their target. I couldn't let them regroup and start firing back. I waved my arm at my troopers. "Into them, don't let them escape!"

The men roared as they raised their bayonets and charged the enemy. I lead the charge with my chain-sword brandished, we closed the gap of 20 metres between us and the enemy in only a matter of seconds.

We fell upon the enemy who rose to meet us. I swung my chain-sword at a heretic, the man deflected the strike with his combat blade and struck out with his fist. I blocked his fist by diverting it upwards and I stepped forward and kneed him in the stomach, where he grunted and bent over in pain. I swung my chain-sword downwards and decapitated the heretic.

Wiping the sprayed arterial blood from my visor I turned to engage a new threat. There was a boom of a shotgun and a trooper's chest was blasted out, he fell dead to the floor. I raised my laspistol and squared it on the heretic's head. He only realised when it was too late; it took two shots to burst through his helmet and the heretic toppled over backwards.

I lowered my arm, feeling the adrenaline rush fade from my system I realised that the battle had stopped. The troopers moved to cover all the directions. We had lost only the one man, these Auxiliary troopers were proving to be quite adept killing.

I signal for the squad to regroup by a half-destroyed hanger. It took about a minute for all of us to assemble there. I pat the trooper who I had spoken to the most on the back. "I never caught your name."

"Private Kurt Sergi, sir." I blink at his name, I've heard weird ones in my time, no not only mine but that. Well, that was just an odd one.

I take a measure of him, he was stocky built, quite large shoulders with a shaved head with a scar on the cheek. I'd estimate he was about a bit smaller than me in height. He, along with the other troopers were clad in standard Bocanh fagitures of black and grey camouflage, they also donned standard flak armour with a black painted lasgun.

"Right private Sergi. What was your original objective?" I ask.

"Gaining ground control of the space port to assist the attempts of the assault forces, sir." He replied so quickly, it was as if he remembered his order off by heart, there was no hesitation.

"Right, well I'm giving you new orders." I turn to include the whole squad. "My objective was to, through the fighting, to infiltrate and capture the space port control tower. Considering that you are now my new squad, that is your order from this moment forward."

One of the troopers raised his arm, a question on his lips. "Will we have any support sir?"

I couldn't help but chuckle at his question. "No trooper, we will have no support. Don't expect the armoured units to provide any support, Major Blankhof will do everything possible to make the situation unbearable for us."

Some of the troopers passed a couple of uneasy looks around the group and I knew I had to be assertive. "Squad, this is an order, we are going to complete that objective for the Emperor and Imperium. We are His hammer and we will crush these heretics under our boots! Tell me this, what do we live for?"

The squad replied sharply. "The Emperor and Imperium!"

I look at them, they seemed to be empowered by that little speech. Turning I observe the target building, it was a monstrosity and leaned up over the space port, accompanied by its twin they were a prominent feature of the area and the defence of this area.

All the better to recapture it then.

* * *

**Done, hope you enjoyed it. Any reviews will be greatly appreciated. :] (Hopefully that didn't sound like begging).**

**Translations:**

**"Sektor ist klar, bereit zum nächsten Wegpunkt zu bewegen." -** "Sector is clear, ready move to the next waypoint."

**"****Bejahend, bestätigt Wegpunkt." -** "Affirmative, waypoint confirmed."

**"Er ist hier in der Nähe, wo ihn, lassen Sie sich nicht den falschen Gott-Anbeter überleben!"**** -** "He's near here, find him, don't let the false-god worshipper survive!"

**'****Achtung****!' -** 'Attention!'


	5. Chapter 5: Objective sighted

**Nam Imperator**

**Chapter 5 - Objective sighted!**

We scraped ourselves through the rubble, I stopped for a moment and surveyed the area; from the rubble which surrounded us I could tell that we were in the ruin of some storage building. The tools and broken parts littered among the rubble did kind of give it away. I moved my eyes from our current area, the battle had raged for a good hour now, mostly becoming a solid stalemate with both sides waging a gruesome battle of attrition.

I'd swear that it was due to a certain _Major's_ indecisiveness which caused this situation. I gave a sigh, knowing that I shouldn't dwell on what has happened. I pushed on and removed my canteen from my belt, I took a sip; the water had a sterilised taste but I couldn't moan, it was better than nothing.

Suddenly one of the leading troopers pushed his arm out to the side of his body with his thumb downward, we threw ourselves into the rubble as the audible rumble as a tracked-vehicle rolled closer into earshot. We all bit into the dirt as the vehicle rolled past, I angled by head up as it passed and I felt my blood chill. With deathly sharp spikes, horrid unrecognisable markings and its barrels adorned with daemonic maws; the Chaos Predator screamed past.

I started to flap big time the moment the Predator had moved past, I kept telling myself that I had not really seen it, that I was imagining it but I knew what I saw was real. The operation had really hit the fan now. I crawled past my squad members, they stayed put as I saw from their faces that they knew that we weren't out of it yet. Covered in dust I rested against a neat pile of broken rockcrete slabs. I unclasped my helmet and poked my head around the corner and looked to the direction the Predator had gone. Leaning around I caught a glimpse of a few figures, there was a mix of shapes and sizes. I recognized the heretic guardsmen the easiest and that was the problem; they were the smallest of the group.

It was the bigger ones that concerned me, they looked exactly like the ones I had killed back in the trenches of sector 5B, line 7. All it did was confirm my feelings. The bigger problem was that if the Traitor Marines were here, how many were there? Had they come in force? I couldn't tell and them being there, of all places meant that we had to take a minor diversion. It was almost like they had been lying in wait, but that was impossible to tell.

I moved back to the squad and motioned for them to gather round with a pat on my now replaced helmet. Once we had grouped up behind some concealing cover I produced a small map from one of my combats pockets. "Right, we've got a small complication, you bunch saw them too; Traitor Marines. They've positioned themselves so that the main route to the command and control towers is blocked." I gave the map a prod and outlined a route with my finger. "We're going to have to push up and across the main terminals to reach the target tower, that route is the only way which gives us the most flexibility on the route we choose."

The group remained silent, they were all taking it in, readjusting themselves to the new plan. I felt I had to do a quick recap. "Once we've reached the perimeter of the tower, we need to gain access; hopefully the blast doors are open or unlocked," I gave a pause for a moment and inclined my head to one of the troopers. "In the case that the doors are sealed then I want you Jefferson to blast them open."

Jefferson gave a nod in confirmation; he was a stocky, broad built man. Even though he had a ghastly adolescent stubble, a reminiscent image from his younger life; he had knowledge which was critical to this missions success. Him being the demolitions specialist.

"Once the tower has been breached, we need to make our way to the main control centre; there we must evaluate the condition of the systems and act accordingly." I gave the map a good stuff back into its pocket and readied my weapon. "Right everyone; move out, maintain squad coherency and keep your bloody heads down."

The troopers gave an affirmative and prepared to move, we shuffled out from our refuge and back along the way we came. We filtered along through the rubble and popped out into a hull-strewn artery of the spaceport; it was a horrid mess of blackened imperial vehicles, their scorched shells made it impossible to identify which side they had been on. We advanced forward, past a smouldering Chimera; the charred remains of the commander hung limp out of the turret hatch. And it stank, I stood for a moment and contemplated whether the stench was corruption, or as I turned to note the limp body that it was the smell of our purgation. I settled on the later, well; it was the more reasonable one.

It was surprising, that we moved through what High Command classed as a critical operation. Marching down this spaceport route, we had no one other than the bodies lying crumpled in the dust to keep us company. It was either that this was a bloody big spaceport or the action had already past. It didn't matter really, all the better for us to complete our objective.

We spent about 15 minutes slowly advancing down this route, to some it was pretty scenic in comparison to the manufactorium hives spread out to the east. With prefabs and modular hangers lining the route it was quite good to PDF standards, throw in a few shell craters with bodies and tank hulls here and there you've got quite a interesting place.

It wasn't until the trooper slumped to the floor when the super-sonic crack of a sniper rifle ripped through us, the man's helmet failed in its purpose and only aided in collapsing the trooper's skull as the round tore into his head. I gave a yell and threw myself to the side of the route.

_CRACK!_

A howl sounded from another trooper as the round ripped his arm off in a great gout of blood. He tumbled to the floor. "Trooper, don't move!" I shouted. "Anyone see where those shots came from?"

"I think it came from the towers sir!" One yelled out. "Up in the central control level!"

I gave a curse, that was not good, well that screwed our plan to Terra and back. "Squad covering fire!" I scrambled out from my precious cover and slid over to the wounded trooper; he was sobbing like a terrified child and that was probably not far right. The crack of our weapons shot at the sniper's location, we knew damn well that it would be fruitless but the sniper didn't know that, that was in most likelihood our only advantage.

I grasped onto the gorget of his armour and gave a tug, I dragged the poor, weeping trooper across the rocky ground out of the sniper's line of fire. He left a sickly trail of blood as his arm constantly pumped more of his life-giving blood onto the rockcrete. I clambered back into the cover, there was a dull scrape as the trooper's backplate connected with the rockcrete curb and I had to give a tug to get the armour over the curb. "Medic!"

The trooper in question scrambled over, the rest had pulled back into their cover as I returned. The medic, trooper Owen Gidor; a bland sort of man if you know what I mean, had no taste or personality. He quickly snatched a pack from his belt and ripped it open. He slid out a mould-able plastic cap and rammed it onto the stump, there was a sound of pressured air as he connected a power-pack to the mould and the tool sealed the wound in a matter of seconds. Don't even ask me how the thing works, that isn't my speciality.

I moved away from the sobbing trooper and the medic and shuffled over to Sergi. "Sitrep, its too quiet; any news on the damned sniper?"

"Well, we're in luck sir." He grinned but he generally looked confused, I gave him a questioning look. "That pesky sniper just threw himself out of the tower."

"Really, you're joking right?"

"Nay, Jefferson thinks he was pushed from his perch but it still doesn't make sense. Why would he do that?"

"Only the Emperor knows that at the moment, but we need to move; the traitors have probably cottoned on to our position." It baffled me too but that shoved the enemy sniper out of the equation. Though it begs to ask; what caused him to either fall or jump from the tower?

I rolled over and tapped a trooper on the back, getting his attention. I didn't know the guy but he seemed all right. "Right trooper, take two men, the doc and escort the wounded trooper back to the Division's RV, then report to the general personally and give him a brief of the operation, get that trooper medical help too and keep the frig out of the enemy's way." He gave a nod and collected up the men into his fireteam.

As they moved off, we gathered ourselves and prepared to move out. We advanced through the shattered ruins of the spaceport, we proceeded into a terminal building; the golden aquila hung above the great glass entrance which were smashed and shot-through. We stepped through the threshold and moved gently in; with the glass crunching under foot we scanned the great hall in which we had entered.

The marble floor and rockcrete walls were pocketed with both bullet and rockets impacts. I stared upwards as my men filtered around me, the domed roof of stained glass miraculously intact, the figure that it displayed had survived the attack and remained powerful. I couldn't help it but I felt proud when I saw the image of the God-Emperor remain true and strong. I could tell that the men around me shared my sentiments.

Lowering my gaze I saw a great staircase opposite us,it lead up to the upper floor, I waved the men forwards and they advanced with weapons raised. The steps were littered with fragments of rubble and shell casings, I stopped and plucked one from the floor; I inspected the casing I looked at the stamp of the side. The Aquila remained undamaged with the batch code of the shell; I recognised it was of Imperial manufacture and the production date told me that this particular shell had been made after the heresy. I then let the casing slip from my fingers and it clattered back into the steps.

I jogged up the remaining steps to the rest of the squad, they stood covering the next floor, I stepped from the stairs and observed the expanse; to the far left stood the security checkpoints where the passengers would have gone through prior to boarding their vessel. To the right was a collection of hanger doors, they themselves were battered and punctured; a similar sight I was starting to see throughout this spaceport. However, my interest was caught by the set of doors which loomed in front of us, the gaping hole splitting the great plasteel door had thrown huge chunks of it across the hall, but it was what was beyond that which I wanted; the entrance to the control tower.

"Sir!"

I gave a start and turn to see Sergi pointing to a corpse, I realised that I had missed that; I'm losing it and I am not even that old. I step towards the armour-clad body and get down on my hunches. My closer inspection revealed two things to me, the person who lay before me was a member of the spaceport's Adeptus Arbites division. That made sense, what didn't were the claw marks on his chest-plate; blood had congealed around the shredded sections of his carapace. From the red mush which peaked from under his chest-plate told me that his stomach had been ripped open and his ruptured intestines had somehow clawed themselves out of their captivity.

I rocked back onto my heels and ran a finger across my chin, I felt a days stubble and made a mental note to get that shaved off once the op was over. It was confusing to say the least, a soldier with wounds that could have only been caused by a beast, odd. I pushed myself up and turned to the squad. "OK everyone, move out but keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

I moved away from the body and we advanced cautiously towards the exit, throughout the whole time I felt that something was watching us, I knew it was a bit of a coincidence after what we had saw but I felt it. We exited the building, only to march straight into a billowing cloud of ash. I snapped down my helmet visor, it kept the horrid ash out of my eyes.

It made me wonder, what the hell had the northern sectors been producing to make this amount of ash. We crept forward, keeping our back hunched and weapons raised we moved steadily to the perimeter fence of the tower. You could see about six heretics floating around the tower entrance, they grouped by a battered half-track that had probably seen better days. It was fortunate that they were more interested in their Lho sticks than their task of holding the entrance.

I angled my head and inspected the enemy positions, no strong points meant no heavy weaponry. The half-track had a pintle-mounted Heavy stubber, we just had to keep an eye out for any heretics making their way to that. The scanned the perimeter fence and it occurred to me that the only entrance was the gateway to our left; about 10 metres.

I turned back to my squad, I saw that Jefferson was itching to start the fight, I thought Sergi wasn't far from that mind-set too. However, I raised a hand and they both stopped their inner fights and looked at me, it was a low rumble; Chimeras. Their engines sounded well maintained so it couldn't be heretical and Blankhof's forces were positioned too far away to be that quick in assembling a strike force; they had their hand's full anyway.

I motioned downwards, we squished ourselves into the ash covered rubble. Three black Chimeras roared past, they zoomed through the gate and pulled up by the entrance. The ramps hissed down with striking efficiency and three squads-worth of soldiers piled out. I caught a glimpse of them, they were clad in thick-set carapace armour with shock-absorbent covers over the carapace plates. They were all armed with slug weaponry and in particular shotguns, one soldier in each squad was equipped with a burning flamer.

My mind racked through its logical cores to find a reason to why such an organised force would happily march past a bunch of heretics without even looking. But it clearly told me that they, who-ever they were, were heretics.

I was thankful to see that the Chimeras packed up and rolled back out of the compound, through the kicked up ash I saw four heretics pull away from the small group by the half-track and move to escort the squads up into the tower. We still had to wait, I gave it about two minutes after they had entered the tower, the four men didn't return and that was a bonus.

I turned to the group and made a chopping action towards the enemy, the squad picked up the command quickly and aimed their weapons at the heretics, the sharp cracks of concentrated fire picked off the heretics in one go, the only fault was that one of the heretics hadn't received a head-shot rather two shots in the chest. Sergi looked pretty sheepish and I realised that was him. "Trooper Sergi, assign yourself 2 hours on the firing range after the operation for your lack of targeting rituals."

He gave a nod and I motioned with my arms for us to form an arrowhead formation by forcing my arms backwards behind me. We moved off cautiously, watching the entrance for any returning heretics. It barely took us 30 seconds to cross the compound and up to the entrance.

We closed up our ranks as we piled in to both sides of the entrance, those closest to the door scanned the interior with their rifles, the rest provided over watch. I gave the door a quick once-over, there didn't seem to be any explosive or impact damage to either the door or the internal mechanisms. I shuffled quickly past the gaping hole that was the entrance and headed over to the access console.

Sergi was already scrutinizing the flashing green console. "Who would have the Delta-6-Apache security clearance sir?"

I could have hazarded a guess but even I hated the thought of it; only the Governor had that clearance code. I decided not to mention that, we needed to secure the control room and regain control over the spaceport.

"Troopers Peter, Hal and Godwin; maintain a security cordon at this point, keep your heads down and don't let any hostile beyond this point." I then waved the remaining members of the section into the building, they moved in and kept all angles of attack covered. The three troopers settled into their positions on the interior by the door; keeping the outside covered.

I advanced with great caution, I took measured steps; missing all the debris that scattered the floor. I swept the hall with my rifle, it was in a dismal state; the cabling and mechanisms of the mysterious inner workings of the tower had been ripped out and ransacked, the lights and various displays dotted around the room were completely smashed, rendering them useless.

I flicked my lamp-pack from its place on my belt, it clipped onto the barrel of my rifle; I gave the rifle a shake to see the sturdiness of the clip. The lamp flashed on, highlighting the darkened room with a sharp cone of light. My fireteam then attached their lamp-packs on too, bringing their light to assist mine.

I moved my cone of light to the opposite side of the entrance hall, I saw a great curved door, the heavy-set blast door remained shut but the tremendous rumbling sound gave away what was on the over side of the door. Also the words stamped on the doors dropped a big hint:

NO ENTRY TO CONTROL CENTRE VIA LIFT WITHOUT DELTA-6 CLEARANCE – TRESPASSERS OF THIS POINT FORWARD WILL BE IMMEDIATELY PUT DOWN

The automatic heavy bolters hanging limp from their sockets in the ceiling by the lift doors, they once would have given any visitor a stark reminder that the warning was not only just a warning.

The security booth to the side gave a sense that there was no interaction with the control centre and from the ground level other than secure communication from that booth. Sergi closed the distance between us, the squad having confirmed that the immediate area was clear. "Sir, I believe that we shouldn't use that freight lift to ascend the tower, it would make too much of a disadvantage to us."

Damn, I had to agree with him, the sound would alert them and all they need to do was just gun us down when the doors opened. Sergi was in the making of a fine sergeant, quite similar to me back in the day, these were my thoughts as I stood recalling my earlier career.

I turned back from the lift, there would be no help there. "Jefferson, Hardrada and Wolsey, start searching the immediate area and look for anything that could give us access up to the upper floors like maintenance hatches or lifts, that freight lift cannot be the only way up."

They gave a start and moved straight to the task, me and Sergi stood with our weapons aimed at the blast doors. I counted barely 90 seconds before Wolsey gave a shout from behind the security booth and there was a heavy scrape of metal. I turned, leaving Sergi covering the blast doors, moving quickly I jogged over to Wolsey; he was panting and craning his head into the recess in the wall.

He shuffled back a step as I peered into the darkness of the maintenance shaft. A rusty ladder lost itself in the dark space above. "Righty-ho squad, make our way up, try to keep noise at a minimum and be prepared to engage straight out of the hatch."

I hauled myself up into the shaft, it was cramped and it was a tight fit with me and my equipment. My men followed me into the shaft and up the ladder, it was quite tiresome but as I took the rung which I measured as half-way up, the sounds of shotgun fire boomed above us, it sounded co-ordinated at first but then it deteriorated to random shots; yells and shouts followed, they sounded panicked.

There was a sharp crack as a grenade went off somewhere above us, I felt the shock wave vibrate the maintenance shaft, a few cables and sockets were rocket from their perches and hang limp, dangling down into the darkness blow.

I looked up and saw a dull light shining onto one of the shaft's sides, I climbed the next few rungs and came level to it. I angled my head to look at the source of the light, it was a windowed hatch, I gave the hatch a scan and realised it had no inner door mechanism, well not any I could recognise. I pulled up a booted foot when I prepared to kick out at the hatch when I heard a ripping sound, something you hear in the horror picts shown late at night back in the barracks; the tearing of flesh.

I froze, a red liquid splattered onto the window and there was another sound which reminded me of a hound crunching on a bone. I felt my world chill over, this couldn't be, a demon? Whatever was on the other side of the door, I had to complete my mission, for the Emperor! I kicked out, my boot connected with the hatch door and forced it from its snug position in the wall. It fell to the floor with a tremendous clang.

The sound was accompanied with the scrapping of the claws on metal and the noise disappeared into the building. I clambered out and immediately scanned the area, nothing, nothing living that was. The looked to the floor, as my men appeared from the hatch, I lift a boot and I felt a resistance and the sickly fluid on the floor coated it's bottom. The whole section of the corridor was covered in blood. Sprays of arterial blood was splattered up on the wall and ceiling; among the littered shell casings on the floor lay three decimated bodies. From their remains I saw that they were the mysterious off-worlders, except when they went in they had their stomachs and heads intact, now their innards lay scattered around them.

I took a step forward gingerly, the squad filled out of the shaft and had both sides of the corridor covered. I noticed a sign was bolted to the side of the wall, it was smothered in blood, I tugged a cloth from a pouch from the webbing on my chest-plate.

I wiped the blood off the bronze metal, the smeared blood revealed that left would lead to the armoury while right would lead to the control centre, quite convenient.

"Movement!" Jefferson called out, his voice was trembling.

I raised my rifle and tried not to slip as I moved over to him. "Numbers?"

"Unknown sir, possibly more than four." I was starting to shake, whatever he saw in the darkness really shook him. "Didn't get a clear ID sir, but they weren't human."

I squint into the darkness, about 20 metres off, one of the florescent lights flickered suddenly. I caught a glimpse of the figures which had spooked Jefferson. Even I was freaked out, for that split second, they stood, staring at us, shoulders hunched and what looked like tubing draping from their bodies onto the floor.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, they weren't like anything I had read, heard or even seen about. "Identify yourselves!" I gave a shout, even I felt the edge in my voice.

I got no response, I gave another long look at the figures, as the lights flickered again. "In the name of the God-Emperor, identify yourselves!"

That got a reaction, I don't know if it was the use of _Emperor_ in that sentence, or my tone. But they moved, like they hated the very essence of the God-Emperor. In short, they charged, Jefferson gave a yell and tried to aim at the enemy; I pulled the stock of my rifle to my shoulder and let loose a few shots, one pierced the figure leading the charge in the hip. It didn't falter, it kept coming.

It unleashed a guttural howl, in the flickering light, it's metal encased jaw stretched to inhuman proportions, the rank body swept past us, it swung out with a metal claw on the end on one of it's mutated stumps. The deadly claws caught Jefferson in the head, the sharp edges ripping grooves in the metal. He fell like a lead block. I let loose upon the monster, the solid slug rounds tore into the wall, my trailing aim missed the beast completely as it scrapped along the wall to evade. Hardrada jumped into the fray, his autogun roared and his rounds crumbled the beast's head, splattering it's brain matter and fluids across the already saturated corridor.

Wolsey stepped forward and blasted at the remaining beasts, they scrambled away back into the darkness at the sight of their fallen leader. I slid over to Jefferson, the gorges weren't deep and the helmet hadn't been penetrated. "Jefferson, you with us?"

"Yes, sir." Came the quiet reply, he had me fooled; he looked big and tough but throne, he was nearly shaking.

"Well, get up and man up, cover the that bloody corridor while your at it." I ordered, just as I realised the unfortunate pun.

I turned as he stumbled to his feet, Hardrada was inspecting his first kill inside the tower, I trudged over and stared at the body. "And?"

He prodded the corpse, up close it didn't look as scary but by throne, something had been at it like, the only way I could have described it as that a sick and demented surgeon had been at it with a strange idea of perfection. Hardrada rolled the carcass onto its back, he unclasped his lamp-pack and shone it over the torso and head.

He gave a whistle as he leaned over to inspect a part of the metal around the neck and compared the detail to a note in his newly appeared dataslate, I span around and learned over him. "Trooper, we don't have time for dramatics, what is it?"

"Well sir, you ain't going to like this." He motioned for me to lean forward, I did so and he pointed to a series of numbers stamped into the metal of the frame. "A serial number sir, I checked it against the record of assigned units to this spaceport."

"Do you mean what I think you mean?"

"Aye sir, this thing or what makes up it is, well was, an imperial servitor appointed to this control tower. Yes sir, the corruption is evident and I don't know if we can contain this sir." He paused for a moment, sliding his dataslate back into its pouch. "If the servitors are infected, then there is a high chance that the critical systems have been compromised."

"Curses!" I straighten up. "How many servitors were present in this facility Hardrada?"

He paused for a moment, his forehead wrinkled as he tried to recall the information. "At least 50 sir."

I saw it dawn on him at that fact, possibly 50 corrupt and mutated servitors running amok in this place, all the nooks and crannies would mean we would be dead meat in no time.

"We have to move now! Sergi, Jefferson, cover the rear, Wolsey and Hardrada with me and form a wedge, cover all angles of approach, we need to reach and secure the control room, be vigilant men!"

We formed up, my steps were careful, my lamp-pack lit the way, we advanced towards the flickering light. I felt my pulse quicken, I knew it was pure adrenaline, the expectation of engagement. But I tasted my fear, or hatred as I would have to recall to the commissariat. I flexed my grip on my rifle, my muscles tensed as we passed under the flickering light.

There was nothing, I looked back, to see if the squad formation was kept in check. We managed to reach the control room door in good time, the squad except Wolsey aimed their rifles out back down the corridor.

I inspected the door briefly, it seemed to be a sliding blast door, the great adamantium door looked unlikely to budge under stress. The emblazoned Imperial eagle was still intact which was good to note, Wolsey had moved to the control console and plugged in another dataslate; I was seeing more of these now than over the last year. That must be where part of the budgets for the auxiliary forces went to; well, if it got these doors open then I would reacquisition some for my team.

"Wolsey, what's the situation?" I queried as he connected his slate into the system, the dataslate hummed and clicked as it somehow bypassed all the systems to open the door.

"Not good, the machine spirit in the doors mechanisms will be easy to coax, however I cannot connect to the central systems. They could have either been taken off the network or they are unresponsive, the latter would indicate a level of corruption in the systems." He said while activating some sort of process on his slate.

"Sir!" Sergi shouted. "Incoming, 30 metres!"

"Wolsey, get that bloody door open!" I rushed over to Sergi and peered out into the corridor, the beasts had returned, en masse. I raised my rifle and aimed the iron sights directly on the leading beast. "Open fire, engage at will!"

The troopers and me pulled our triggers at the same time, a surprising feat I know but effective nevertheless. The leading 5 toppled to the ground with a sickening crunch, their limbs tangled their immediate followers, these were shortly blasted apart.

The cry of "Reloading!" came from my left, I shifted my aim to cover him as he exchanged his magazines.

"Wolsey!" I gave the shout again, if it continued like this my throat would be non-existent.

"A minute sir!" He shouted back.

"We don't have a minute Wolsey! Make it 30 seconds." I yelled back, just to up the ante.

The hammer struck home with a clang and I clasped the magazine release catch, as the magazine dropped to the floor and I was already slamming another one home. I was about to let rip when the door behind me gave a clanking of the locks sliding back into the door, the door moved sideways; opening its mighty maw to us.

"Move in!" I waved my men through, I fired two shots into the charging mass and I madly piled in after them. "Close it!"

The door slid shut, the locks bolting the door in place. We stood stock still, waiting for it; the inevitable impact. The thud came we shocking force, the beasts ramming themselves silly trying to get through, the sound of scrabbling claws on metal was bone deep.

Our panting was laboured, my party had all our attention on the door. In hindsight, that did not prove to be our best decision.

"Sergeant?" A voice echoed out over the scraping.

I froze, that voice, I felt my muscles tense at the very thought, it couldn't be, absolutely ridiculous! I had to make sure, I turned to meet this new threat, readying my rifle the coming fate of both me and my men became apparently clear with every degree.

"You, a sergeant of my PDF is always welcome here, especially now." The man who spoke paused for a moment, almost like a politician doing a speech. "You are a very special person, sergeant Vladimir..."

I now fully turned, the horde of heretics surrounding us was a major threat. But two figures caught my attention, one was the hulking figure of a Chaos Marine, the cursed being but the other caused my lip to curl in disgust. That self-aspiring bastard of a man, Graham Lexicus XI, that heretic of a governor.

"Welcome my guest of honour." He said with a white-toothed, immaculate grin as he swept his arms out to his sides in a symbol of greeting. I had found my objective.

* * *

Righty-ho, my longest chapter so far. Hope you enjoyed it.

Emperor of Man


	6. Chapter 6: Badly plotted ending

**Nam Imperator**

**Chapter 6 – Badly-plotted ending**

I clenched my fist in anger, who does he think he is, talking to me like a long-lost friend. The only way I can put what was happening in words is the use of a cliché; I felt my blood boil at the very sight of the man. He let his arms drop to his sides, it would have pained me to describe the action as graceful but in a situation such as this, you really don't have time to pick up a _Vocabulorum __Lexicon_ and find another word suitable.

I fingered the trigger of my rifle, if; at the stake of my life that I was able to get a shot off and splatter this traitorous cur's brains across the room, I would have done it. Had it not been for the countless barrels pointing at us and the numerous heretics standing in our way, it would have been as simple as taking a Lho-stick from a rookie. Not that I have, or ever will require to take one of the putrid things.

The traitor motioned to a couple of the carapace-clad heretics to move towards us, which they did so with great haste. "Sergeant, I would prefer it for all our sakes that you allow my men to relinquish you of your weapons."

The crack of readied weapons homed the threat in his order. I knew it would go against everything I stood for but I had to improvise, I hadn't counted that the traitor would be here. I gave a slow nod, we might be at a disadvantage but I wanted to place the traitor on the back step. "Fine, but we keep our pistols."

The traitor gave a small smile, as if he expected me to say that. "Naturally."

A fireteam moved forward, the leading member raised his hand for me to pass the weapon over. I gave his gas mask's tinted eye sockets a glare as I handed across my rifle, I could really kill the bastard but I swear he was laughing at me from under his helmet, I gave a small thought that I would get my revenge, I'm pretty sure you would have done the same.

"Remove your helmet sergeant." The officer, or what I would call an officer, ordered. His other hand was outstretched, his rifle hanging limp on his chest. I slowly unclasped my helmet, the seal wheezed as it was removed. I didn't pass it over, instead, I hooked the back onto a clip onto my belt designed for the helmet, I gave him a grim smile, he lowered his hand and moved off to the side.

"It's him." I heard the officer say as he moved back. They must have wanted me to remove my helmet so they could check my identity, a bit bureaucratic for chaos.

I saw my team gingerly pass their rifles over to the heretics, I bet that some shared my feelings, at both them and me for giving such an order. I gave a grimace as I realised if word of my action got out, I would be court-marshalled and shot as a traitor and heretic before the commissariat. Screw it, I had to complete the objective, primary and secondary.

There was a sharp clap and I snapped my head around in the direction of the noise. The heretic had clapped his hands, still with that cursed grin. An orderly moved forward or what I could tell he was one, he wore decorative clothing of bright colours, strange but it disgusted me thoroughly. He held a glass tray and placed it down on top of a console; with calculated precision he measured out a glass of some liquid from a large decanter, I would have guessed it to be some Amasec drink. I've never been into the alcohol craze, you should just pop down to the Monthus Manufactorum district for an hour; every border guard and foreman would be absolutely smashed, even on duty. I detested the stuff, it muddled your brain but thankfully the commissariat declared a ban on all alcoholic beverages across the sector, it helps with the morale, at expense of combat efficiency. But in this time, brutal madness is a fine substitute to tactics when it comes to the one against one in the battlefield.

The orderly passed the beverage across to the heretic, who took it without a second thought. The orderly removed the tray and slipped back to wherever he had appeared from. The heretic moved past the hulking, retched form of the Traitor Marine, whose helmeted head followed my every moment. The heretic swirled the dark liquor in the glass for a moment before taking a calculated sip from the glass. "You know sergeant, you have become a, what's the word, a figure of hatred among my... our forces." He gestured to the Traitor Marine for the last part.

"With your record, being one of the first mortal soldiers of the hated enemy to single-handedly to take down two of my friend's companions, the first two to fall in this campaign. Also in such a dishonourable method too, a lascannon? My, it seems a bit over the top. However, that is not the only reason to why you, sergeant, have been singled out by us. You are, metaphorically, a thorn in my side. My psykers had, kindly informed me before I had a bolt put through their loyal, faithful heads, that they feared a mighty war would break out, they outlined two key figures; me and you. Luckily I was able to find out everything about you through the PDF, and placed you near all the major battles I could afford to do before this holy uprising was sprung, in an obvious attempt to kill you. Which by the look of it, you see; has failed every time.

"Sounds like some badly plotted story doesn't it sergeant; the good, honourable, soldier being hunted by the unknown enemy until now, who reveals his master plan to a vain attempt to up his ego before his prey dies. However, I will come out tops, and this is how, having cornered you here I can eliminate you from the face of this planet and I will be able to complete my masters' wishes to the fullest, without any intervention from you."

He paused for a moment, I honestly couldn't believe what he just said, all of this, to kill me? Taking another sip from his drink, he took a deep breath, as if he was readying himself for part 2 of his speech, Emperor save us, this was getting worse and worse.

"Lexicus!" The Traitor Marine finally growled to the traitor, finally interrupting his speech, as even the soldiers were getting tired of it. "The great arch-enemy draws near, we need to finish him now! Unless we get caught unaware, and you know my lords and particularly the Gods do not take kindly to failures."

"Yes, yes. You have made your point many times, and it is frankly becoming irritable. I have factored their participation into the plan, we know they won't be here for another hour, then we can deal with them later."

Great arch-enemy? I was struggling to see who this _enemy_ was. While I could have hazarded a guess, as I probably think you do as well and a quite accurate one too. Well, you are sitting comfortably in your seat reading this, I hope. I would have scratched the back of my head, almost like doing a tough questionnaire given out by the commissariat to test your mental strength and faith, throne, the wording on those were done to catch you out; they were horrible.

"Ahem!" The traitor governor cleared his throat, as if sweeping past the anxiety of the Marine. "As our sergeant has expressed, I fear our time for chit chat is drawing to a close."

I angled my right hand slowly towards my belt, aiming for the grenade snugly placed there, I was knew they were going to realise my actions well before I completed them. "Right you traitorous bastard, considering you've done all the talking around here, I want to ask one question."

I had to keep them talking and their eyes off my hands. He gave a small, strained smile, any glint to his gentlemanly presence vanished. "Of course sergeant, think of it as your last famous words, I will record them. You won't be forgotten, the man who was killed to stop the potential future of _my_ great campaign. Once I have finished with this world, I shall take on this worthless Imperium in the Gods' names. I shall write history with this, my truth will be the truth and there is nothing you, the Inquisition or that False-Emperor can do about it. Because you will be dead, rotting on a stake as your skull is claimed for the skull throne."

What on Terra did he sound like, I gave small grimace in disgust at what he just said. If that was my fate, so be it, but I'll take this traitorous cur with me. However, if that were to happen, my service to the beneficent God-Emperor would end, not what I want, nor you I hope, because how would I be able to write my memoirs?

I dropped my left hand to my side and it hovered over my hidden combat blade. It was more of a habit to include it, it wasn't part of the standard equipment but it helped; especially in situations like these.

"So, if this is my last moment, before you wipe me off the face of the planet. Tell me, what is your plan?" I saw that a vein visibly pulsed on the traitor's temple. To me, it looked like a question he was not expecting, suck on that you traitor!

He gave an audible sigh, is whole demeanour changed in a flash, gone was the politician, in it's place was a rugged, weary man whose new posture boasted years of military training.

"The NCOs never learn their place." He growled, unclasping his robe, he let the item fall to his feet, revealing carapace armour plates of the highest customisation and construction, under this he wore black fatigues.

I tensed sharply, my hand gripped the grenade hard as his robe hit the floor, every soldier around us brought their rifles to bear and I gathered that over 20 barrels had squared onto our heads. His hand stayed level to where he had risen it to, as if a drop would signal our death. This was getting really weird, as if these bastards wanted to draw out everything with a dramatic action.

"I believe the time has come sergeant, let's end this badly plotted story with a bang, hmm?" He flexed his hands and I heard a couple of soldiers cock their rifles. "For the dark Gods, I will close this pesky chapter and end it with your death."

Now let me tell you, my world froze as he sharply dropped his arm. My whole body tensed in its last symbol of life before the weapons fired. Which they did. To a devastating effect.

**XXX**

Oh, well, if you thought I would die, then, sonny or lassie, you're wrong. If I had, how could I tell you this now? That I will ask.

**XXX**

The weapons roared in fury. As I realised, they were adding insult to potential injury/death. They were raking the walls behind us in a vertical, downwards motion to us. Those bastards.

I was about to rip the grenade from its comfortable position on my belt, the most amazing thing happened. Well, it nearly killed us.

The whole roof collapsed in a white, blazing explosion. Followed by the sharp thrust of some unknown and foreign rocket engines. I swear I got a small tan, or my armour did during those 5 seconds of thrust.

With a resounding boom, the thing smashed into the floor, crushing both heretics and innocent consoles and systems in the process. I scrabbled myself out of the rubble, for a moment, my mind couldn't make any sense and words would have been lost in a mindless mumble. The blur of sweeping down draft sent dust and smoke billowing my way. I frantically ripped my helmet from its perch and clasped it onto my head, the seal hissed as the filters brought clean, fresh air into my lungs.

The visor switched on thermal goggles inbuilt into the visor, for once I was able to clearly discern figures in the gust of dust and smoke.

I noticed, I may have tugged my grenade from my belt, I had lost it in the madness that surrounded me. Which I hasten to add, is starting to become a recurring thing for me. Losing stuff, my lasgun, my grenade and all that is holy in this battle.

No sooner had the thermal vision flickered on, a figure stumbled into view barely two metres in front, his back turned, no ID strobe flashed on his armour, an enemy I say old boy, charge!

I tugged my combat knife from its holder and pounced, the heretic gave a strangled yell as I crushed his neck with my arm, arching him backwards, I rammed the blade into his back; through his armour and between the rips straight into his heart. I removed the blade as quickly as it went in, I let the body collapse to the floor, the enemy was dead already.

I spun to acquire a new target, I saw it in a thermal figure 2 metres away, they were struggling to get out from under a slab of rockcrete. I moved over and as the red figure, that is only what I saw looked up at me drunkenly and raised his hand in a vain attempt to stop me. I knelt and plunged the blade into his throat with a spray of blood, the figure tried to push me away my his blood soaked hands slipped on my armour.

I felt his final shudder as I twisted the blade, severing all chances of a medic helping him. The bastard deserved it.

As I pulled the blade from the now darkening figure, I felt a person stumble into me, with a sharp turn of my head I saw no ID flash, another enemy, how many were there?

The heretic must have gathered the same conclusion, he tried to raise his rifle to fire, I struck the heretic with my palm on the nose, there was a hearty crack that crept through the noise of the autocannon nearby, I quickly stabbed into his groin, I hoped I got my target; the heretic let out a squeal and as he bent over, I brought my left elbow into the side of his head.

As he stumbled sideways, the blade slid from his groin, my hand was slick with blood. I brought the blade down onto the back of his unprotected neck. It killed him instantly.

I paused, as the body slipped to the floor, the thermal vision suddenly flickered off in a hiss of static, the view left to me was the gentle clearing of smoke and dust.

I frantically searched for the flashing strobes of my team-mates, they weren't hard to find; Wolsey, Hardrada and Sergi had grouped together to my left. Jefferson stood to my right, smashing the brains out of a heretic, I left him to it as I moved over to the rest.

They all stood staring at the mighty object which had smashed its way through the side of the tower. With gleaming silver metal, the dark interior stood empty with the doors that dwarfed any man in my squad. It looked like a drop pod, the ones used by the glorious Adeptus Astartes, I didn't know which chapter, but the presence of Imperial insignia smothered my doubts to whether they were enemies or not.

"Sir, the enemy have escaped!" Hardrada informed me.

"Of course they have you dumb twit." I gave a sigh internally at the obviousness of the statement. "Jefferson, get over here now!"

Jefferson spun from his now dead foe. "Sir?"

"Those bastards are going for the roof, we need to move. And I mean RUN, scavenge weapons and ammo from the heretics you kill on the way." I took my autopistol from its holster, checking the weapon worked, I turned and gave my orders.

"We have to finish this today, those heretics must be heading to the roof, they're going to escape and that cannot happen, you are soldiers of the God-Emperor, we shall not fail." I took two steps forward, and looked back at them, they looked ready. "Let's cut off the head of the snake, after the buggers!"

We weren't heading to a bad plot end, but rather the end of a traitorous, bad bastard.

* * *

Sorry about the long wait, hope you enjoyed the chapter. It was kind of rushed, any mistakes, you have my apologies.

**Emperor of Man**


	7. Chapter 7: Fell brethren!

**Nam Imperator**

**Chapter 7 - Fell brethren! You shall not escape us!**

I climbed the stairs of the emergency passage to the roof landing pad, two-a-pace; we had left the control room behind us. It really wasn't that hard to lose the enemy, while the bastard and his marine-friend had taken the main lift upwards. The remaining troops had fled up the stairs with whatever had been ejected into the battle from that drop-pod in tow. That was the hint, just follow the blasted bodies.

"Sir!" Came a yell from up ahead. I estimated that Sergi was 10 steps above me. I cranked my head upwards, he had his combat shotgun aimed down another passageway. "Sir, we should take control of the secondary control room. That one might still be operational, and if so we can still achieve our main objective."

I caught up with him. "Good thinking, take Wolsey with you, make sure you watch your backs and report back to me on whether the control systems can still be salvaged."

They both gave me a nod before they pegged it down the passageway in question. I readied my pistol, "Move it, don't drop the pace; we can't let them regroup on the next landing!"

Yet again, we took to the stairs with great strides, under the constant noise of gunfire and explosions was the clattering sound of our boots bombarding each step in turn. The whole building shook for a moment, the lights flickered, obviously some artillery bastards had decided to get cocky and bombard the target, that was what I was hoping for; that they are Imperial anyway.

"Only 35 steps until the next landing sir!" Hardrada shouted out. It made me pause.

"How bloody sad are you?" Jefferson stopped aghast. "We're chasing after those bastards and all you can do is count the stairs!"

"Achtung! Kaiserliche Truppen!" A shout sounded from barely 5 feet above us. I spun and saw a ragtag bunch of heretics pelting straight at us, looks of shock and dismay on their faces.

"Charge!" I yelled. My pistol already sighted and firing. One of the shells took the skull cap off a screaming heretic, he didn't stop until what remained of his face had planted itself into the stairs two metres below. Two shots missed and cracked into the walls lining the stairs, sending clouds of dust puffing into the passageway.

I ripped my combat knife out of its sheath and as a heretic charged down towards me with his bayonet out I dodged sideways. I saw the look of horror as he rushed towards and past me. I swept the blade across where his neck should be, the heretic suffered from both the blade and momentum; I felt my arm jar and wedge as he smashed into the ground. I decided to leave the knife, I could always get a new one.

It was then I realised that there was now a constant stream of heretics pouring down the stairs. Jefferson and Hardrada seemed to be coping well, both were ripping the enemy to shreds, literally.

I moved to counter the enemy. One of them hadn't seen me, the heretic was solely focused in attacking the other two. I slid in close by him, a sharp swipe from my elbow to his kidney sent him keeling, there was a nice sound of cracking bone as I must have hit a lower rib too. Another elbow in the back of his head sent him straight to the floor. I swept a rifle butt aside and punched a heretic in the crotch, he squealed in pain and his bloodshot eyes bulged like a pig's.

Suddenly, a second heretic piled in from the right, he slammed a fist into my kidneys. Right where armour doesn't cover. I felt a grunt echo from my throat. He came in again, this time the fist was a rifle butt instead, smashing into my helmet. I collapsed backwards onto the floor. A boot lashed out and struck my head again.

I almost blacked out.

As the boot raised again I kicked out and hit the second heretic's knee cap, let's just say; the lower leg bent forward at a considerably inhumane angle. I then rolled over and onto my knees, as the injured heretic collapsed I rammed my fist into the first heretic's face, I then snatched his knife from his belt and slammed it up through the soft flesh under his jaw, into the mouth and above. A palm-strike secured his death.

Yanking the knife from the now dead heretic's jaw, I jabbed the blade squarely into the neck of the collapsed heretic, he went without a grunt.

Leaving the embedded blade in the heretic's neck, I grabbed the fallen heretic's rifle from the floor. Another one was charging at me. This was really turning into one of those things that the soldiers play back at base, those warfare simulators set to insane levels of combat. I couldn't really care less, I was able to kill in the blessed Emperor's name!

A few rounds into his chest put him tumbling out of action.

"Jefferson! Get a gun and mow them down!" I yelled. My newly found autogun ran empty, only after expelling enough rounds to slaughter six heretics; their bodies rolling down the stairs like barrels.

I removed the spent magazine and rammed another home. "Hardrada. You'll lead the charge, we have to secure the next landing." He too had secured a shotgun.

"How many have we killed now matey?" Jefferson enquired to Hardrada.

"Jefferson, stop pissing around. Form the right side. Move!" I ordered in return. We stepped forward in unison, we gunned down any heretic who confronted us. It wasn't long before we reached the next landing.

We left the stairs, the landing was presented to us; it was a section of metal and rockcrete walkways and platforms connecting us to the other side with more stairs up. It was designed to be a choke-point. A choke-point we had to get through.

We piled off the stairs, straight onto the landing. Our rapid fire cut down those heretics crowding around us. I noted the large number of crates dotted around the place, perfect for us. I gave a jabbing motion with my hand which Jefferson and Hardrada caught onto. "Get to cover!"

Perfect timing too. An autocannon ripped our previous positions to bits, chewing up the bodies and pulverising the rockcrete too. The sharp twang of the shells ricocheting off the crates kept our heads down.

"Jefferson, cover Hardrada, we need to flank the bastards!" I commanded, over the cursed racket of gunfire.

"I don't want to sir!" He yelled back, I looked at him with a look of shock and anger.

"Why not trooper?"

"Mar- mar- marine!" He shouted. My heart froze. No, seriously? I peeked around the crate, he was right. There was a MARINE!

"Bugger!" I yelled, trying to fight the shock. "Hardrada, move right! I'll distract the traitorous cur! Jefferson, cover him."

I saw him move. Then I was hit by the concussive wave of the bolt shells impacting on where we were. I rolled away from the crate, as it was shredded to pieces.

I stopped as blood flecked everywhere. Hardrada fell where he stood, his body now devoid of all of it's torso, he was still trying to breathe, or shall I say choking. His eyes rolled listlessly over to me, while some may have dramatised it with "those accusing eyes". To me, they looked damn-sight dead, glazed over almost.

"Jefferson, clear the area!" I yelled while pulling my gaze from the corpse, Hardrada will be remembered, once we have taken this bastard down.

I crawled along, the marine was raking the crates with it's boltgun. I paused by a gap, waiting for a lull in the onslaught. It came; the new-found peace was broken by the rusty grating of metal as a magazine was removed.

I scrambled up and pegged it across the gap. He might have been a Space Marine, but the warp had muddled his mind, no true marine would have let that happen. Unfortunately, I am not a marine, I couldn't have gone head-to-head with him.

I untangled a frag grenade from my belt, pressing the activation stud on the item, I lobbed it over the crate, hopefully distracting the bastard once more. I moved along again as the grenade exploded. I knew it wouldn't kill him, that cursed power armour would be too strong. I heard Jefferson yell as he fired his rifle, the rounds would have no affect on that damn armour but it removed his attention from me.

I ran into a heretic, the one manning the mounted autocannon. He didn't last long once I bludgeoned his head in with an empty ammo case. It cracked sharply on the first blow, the second made sure it did.

Without sparing a look, I knew that the bastard marine has coined onto the fact that there had been some commotion at the gun nest. I settled myself behind the weapon, it was loaded and ready. Straining my muscles, I angled the retched weapon towards the marine, the bastard had cottoned onto what I was doing, he angled his freshly loaded bolter around to me. I pressed down on the firing studs, there was a huge clatter and booming sound as the gun let rip. The shells peppered the chest plate of the marine it rocked him back, surprisingly, chunks of armour were ripped off the chest plate as the shells exploded.

A piercing roar sounded as the a shell blew off his knee as it found a weakness in the knee joint. The chaos marine yelled once more as he collapsed to the ground, a shell tore into his helmet; it was the final shot, the armour exploded with a concussive force and the armoured plates were thrown in every direction, blood and gore was only what remained at the centre of this small explosion.

The dust settled. I had to release my pent up breath, I freed my grip on the weapon, the bullet-proof gloves creaked as I flexed my hands, the autocannon had shaken me to the core. Jefferson dragged himself over, had he looked at me, he would have seen the eyes of a man who has seen too much, thankfully he didn't. Instead, he reached over and yanked a fallen lasgun from behind the sandbags.

I tapped him on the shoulder. "Use those damn muscles of yours. Take the autocannon. I'll help you." I paused as he shouldered the lasgun and moved over to the mounted cannon. I snatched up a few more magazines to stuff into my webbing. I turned and saw Jefferson practically ripping the autocannon from its mounting, hefting the weapons weight onto his right side while he flung the ammo-belt across his shoulders.

"Throne, how did you manage that?" I asked, absolutely flabbergasted.

"Is the gymnasium a good reply sir?" He replied, flexing his muscles under the weight. It made me wonder whether he had Ogryn blood in him. Oh well, it didn't matter, it was useful.

We collected all the ammunition we could carry and moved off to the next set of stairs.

Is it me, or was this getting quite repetitive? A constant stream of heretics throwing themselves at us.

The moment I took my first step onto the second set of stairs, another set of rocking explosions shook the tower, there was a huge moan as the section of wall behind us, by the entrance we came in cracked and was torn from the tower in a plume of smoke and flame. I threw myself to the floor, the large chunks of rockcrete and masonry were propelled across the landing, they smashed and tore the walkways from their supposed positions, cutting off all access to the way we came.

Yet again, my vision was impaired by the smothering blanket of dust and smoke. I was thankful that my helmet seals were still in working condition, I'd say they had about 30 minutes left of filtration before I'd start breathing in the shit around me.

I heaved myself across the floor, the figure of Jefferson appeared before me, he was struggling with a slab of rockcrete, the obstructing object lay across his right leg. He was trying to push it off but he hadn't a good enough grip. I holstered my newly found lasgun and gripped the slab, bracing myself I tensed and heaved. Blimey, it was heavy. I felt my muscles strain as I pulled the slab off his leg, it was the worst moment of my life as I realised his leg was shattered. The slab fell to the floor after it pivoted on one point for a moment.

He yelled out in pain. His hands gripped his leg around the thigh, the autocannon lay discarded to his right. I could see he was trying to hold back tears.

"It's going to be OK Jefferson. Keep with it." I told him. I dragged a spare lasgun over to him, I ripped out the power pack and let the lasgun discharge the power in the weapon passively. I then forced him to grip the weapon along his shattered leg. I ripped off his other leg's knee pads and pouches, removing the adjustable straps from those items I strapped the weapon to his leg, tightening till it was ram-rod straight. Don't moan to me if I got that wrong, I wasn't the medic and it's called improvisation, nothing more.

"Don't move your leg Jefferson, change of plan, you'll hold this choke-point. I'll go after the bastards." I looked at him, I saw a hint of disappointment in those eyes.

"But I'll manage sir. I can do it-" He tried desperately to find a reason for him to join me.

"No trooper Jefferson." Damn, I needed to get him to focus, I didn't want another death on my hands. "Paul," I couldn't believe that I used his first name, blimey, I was getting too soft. "You must listen. I need you to hold this point, those bastards can't stop us. We need to finish this. When I put a round in that traitor's skull, we can wipe this insurrection off the planet."

He just nodded and lay his hand on the autocannon.

"The Emperor protects. Good luck trooper." I said, patting his shoulder I nodded. I then reached into my belt and gave him my last grenade. "Get the suckers."

"Thank you sir. Aye he does."

I got up and readied my weapon, turning my back on him I advanced over the rubble towards the next set of stairs. What twit designed this tower? This monstrosity really did want to make life hard. I was barely 10 steps up this second, now curving stairwell when three heretics appeared. Blimey, more of them!

I lunged forwards and slammed the butt of my lasgun into his face, he fell like a sack of... rocks? It didn't matter. I cut the other down with a flurry of shots. I then angled my lasgun downwards and picked off the other one.

I gave a sigh. I advanced further up the stairs.

It took me 10 minutes to get near the top. By that point I could hear the roar of the wind and explosions, the battle was obviously still in mid-swing. I lowered my posture, trying to decrease the chance of being seen.

I came out of the stairwell, the external doors had been blown off with some sort of demolition charge, I had passed the demo-cord on my way up. I rolled to the left behind some crates as two armour-clad off-worlders marched past. The walkway I was now in was below the main landing pads, giving me the cover to take these two out.

As they came level to me, I lashed out; swinging my lasgun around I took a swipe at the head of the closest heretic, the lasgun butt connected and he hit the ground hard. I let the rifle fall and ripped my auto-pistol from my holster and brought it level with the black, scared helmet of the other. The the heretic fumbled with his weapon but was too slow, so I put a round through the visor of his helmet, there was a sharp crack from the auto-pistol and a nice kick back of recoil, he was thrown against the side of the walkway, blood dripping from the broken helmet.

I turned as two shots peppered the metal walls around me, I turned and looked to where the heretics had come. Three more were advancing towards me, I fired six shots, all missed. What can you expect from a pistol? I swapped for the lasgun and swung back around to fire at them again. The first shot's aim was true, one lost his neck. The rest were cut down in a few shots. Their bodies fell in slow motion as I realised more were coming from my left and right. By my count there was about 15 in total. I was buggered big time.

All I could do was run, with those heretics in tow. Straight up the stairs leading to the load bays, two-at-a-time.

* * *

**"Achtung! Kaiserliche Truppen!" - "Attention! Imperial troops!"  
**

**Another chapter done. Bit of a long wait for that. Next one will be up, hopefully, soon.**

**Emperor of Man**


	8. Chapter 8  Happy Satchels!

**Chapter 8 - Happy Satchels!  
**

I left the metal stairs in a flash, or as flashy as I could. My dusty boots stomped onto the cracked, hot rockcrete that was the loading bay. Shots rang over my head, well off. The place was a mess, everything that would have identified it as an Imperial loading bay, the objective word being _Imperial_, was gone. I ran across the part laden floor with a haste that even surprised me. It was such a disaster, I had to hop twice to stop myself from tripping of some strewn object.

The battle still struggled on, the rattling of heavy weapons, rumble of artillery fire and the tracers made this obvious. Imagine that I let off a very large smoke grenade, let the smoke settle and turned on a light and sound display to imitate the explosions all around and then threw in some heavy weaponry to make some nice arty. Got that? Good, hold that thought for a moment. Now minus the smoke grenade, place yourself 350 feet off the ground and having 15 heretics chasing you across a hazardous landing platform. You feel for me now right?

I then rounded a corner, my boots momentarily skidding on the rubble scattered floor. I could hear the heretics were still following me, I had to lose them somehow. I pumped my legs furiously, it was worse than the physical training we got back at base, when we weren't off killing heretics or being lectured by the commissariat. I felt the cold beads of sweat sticking to my face slide downwards ever so slowly, it was infuriatingly annoying but so were the heretics swamping the platform behind me.

Speeding around a corner, I found myself going headlong into a pair of heretics munching some gruel substance from their mess tins around a steam cauldron. There surprised faces turned to horror as I hammered the pistol, handle-first into the first one's head, it cracked something, dunno what. He tumbled over into the cauldron as the second one moved to stand, mess tin now fallen to the ground and lasgun coming up. I stepped forward and crouched, the cauldron plus body between us, which a sharp fling of my arms, I upended the hissing object in the heretic's direction; I think it burned him so much he didn't notice the pistol round blowing open his head. Didn't matter; two down.

I estimated the others were about a minute behind, I fired 3 shots back around the corner, I timed a grenade and shoved it in a conveniently placed ammunition crate, quite lucky that; it didn't matter what type of ammo it held, it would all blow up the same. I pegged it so to speak out of the little cul-de-sac and back around another corner.

The shock wave didn't hit me, but the screams did. By the Emperor, they made me feel good! I jogged along whilst keeping my head down, I had to minimise the time wasted in fending off the chaff, hoping nothing untoward would happen to me.

Oh how the clouds must have hated me that day ... seriously I don't think the clouds had something personal against me, you could call it a metaphor for the foul gods metaphorically flying around above the battle. Or you could discount this whole paragraph as waffle but... not the 5 heretics who had just jumped down in front of me.

Bugger.

That was all I could say before I threw myself sideways. The bastards had seen me. And, I realised as I fumbled for my belt, I had run out of grenades. I pulled my rifle up and fired a few shots at the heretics as they came into view, I think I clipped one on the shoulder. Who knows?

I scuffled my way across the ground, rounding a corner and up a small flight of stairs. Is this getting slightly repetitive? It is to me. The rockcrete floor suddenly ripped apart in front of me, dreadful flames of hell- err... warp fire bellowed out. I didn't look to see what came out, I was too busy running straight back towards the heretics.

The first one didn't have time to react to my newly found presence, I kneed him in the stomach and launched an elbow into his face as he bent over. I corrected my balance by dropping to a lower stance; legs bent, and punched the one now in front of me in the solar plexus. I heard the audible gasp as he stumbled backwards. I ripped my knife from my belt and parried the bayonet of a third. It's what you get for charging into a group of 5, I mentally shrugged, no biggie. I then rammed the said knife once through the gap in the visor, I pulled it out and kicked the heretic's knee in, he went down and never came back up as I spun to counter the third. Who came at me in a spray of guts and gore, the boom of a bolter some way off told me how he came to such a grisly end.

One of the mysterious Space Marines came marching past, its power armour glistened silver with a hint of electric gold, already having aimed its bolter on the newly materialised daemons of the warp. The shells ripped into the foul beasts, shredding the flesh from the bloody forms. Yet they moved with an immaterial speed towards the Marine. Only to be cut down by another Marine hefting a might sword wrapped in some mystic energies.

I bloody well didn't understand it but the fell beasts were cut down by these mighty warriors. Now if I was going to be honest, and slightly stereotypical, I should say I huddled it a corner and sobbed at the sights I saw. But still, I didn't. I turned and fled. I bet you my flak armour that you'd do the same. I scrabbled along another walkway and straight into the last section of the roof top.

Six heretics stood between me and the idling valkyrie on the platform. The little buggers were getting on my nerves! This is really getting too repetitive for my liking. But at least a spanner hadn't been thrown in the works yet I note. The first one lunged forward and slipped.

I swear a cactus walked weirdly sideways somewhere off in the distance. But that could have just been me imagining stuff as I plunged my combat blade into the neck of the fallen heretic. I then let loose a couple of shots from my rifle, I got 2 I think. The others charged me.

The first to reach me was put down with two shots to the chest. As his body crumbled two more jumped down from the upper platform, I charged them as they landed. I swung the rifle and it connected with the first heretic's head, a kick in the unprotected kidneys put him momentarily out of action. My leg was then kicked in, it very nearly cracked my knee joint. I gasped in pain as I dropped to my right knee. The second heretic swung in with a right-hander. It connected-

I regained consciousness as my head recoiled off the platform. The heretic was standing above me over my chest, the bastard was unsheathing his knife. I kicked up and hit the sacred area of any man's body, he dropped the knife in his unexpected painful experience. I snatched it out of the air and rammed it home, right where it made even me cringe at the thought of writing it.

He crumbled over and fell out of the action. I plunged the knife into his neck for good measure. As I turned to find the others, all I saw was the fine mist of blood and falling body parts. The loud booms of a bolter assaulted my ears with 3 marines marching past me.

I was ignored. Who blames them? I'm considered to be, by some echelons of Imperial command, mere cannon fodder. Their shells punched holes into the armour of the valkyrie but the beast of a machine shock them off and started circle slowly around the platform.

Whilst the marines tracked the craft with their weapons I spied a good looking satchel charge. I scrabbled over as the empty burning bolter cases filtered down onto me. I gripped the detonation cord and pulled it off. The charge beeped angrily at me and I scurried up and ran forwards. The valkyrie was pulling around, barely 30 ft from the best lobbing position.

And so I did. I lobbed it, straight into the gaping hole of the cargo door, dramatically I would say it was closing or a gunner was sighting me. It was neither, instead it was a heretic screaming in surprise, I swear he jumped out to escape the hurled satchel. I don't think he made it.

I threw myself onto the rubble strewn floor, the blast ripped the craft in two; the wings and flaming engines collided with the tower and tore off huge chunks of rockcrete. The fore section of the craft glided downwards, while there was smoke pouring out of the back I knew that my day was not over. I knew he wasn't dead.

Bastard.

**Wow, I was surprised how long I had left this chapter. Well I hope you enjoy it. **

**Emperor of Man**


End file.
